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People pay more for a house with solar panels

Monday, September 7th, 2009

A survey of 2,700 UK adults, which “found that half of respondents are interested in finding out whether their home is suitable for renewable energy systems, such as solar panels”.

Meanwhile, over a third said they would be willing to pay more for a house where some of the energy was supplied by renewable sources, suggesting that those investing in microgeneration systems will be able to recoup some of the cost through increased house prices.

The same should apply in this country, especially since a lot Americans understand energy prices are going up whether or not there is a climate bill. The point is that as peak oil kicks in and the reality of human-caused climate change becomes painfully clear, energy efficiency, geothermal heat pumps, solar panels and the like will increasingly be seen as a desirable if not essential elements of a home, like an up-to-date kitchen, rather than just a “cost.”

The story on the from the Energy Saving Trust survey continues:

Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, said that the findings were good news for the UK’s emerging onsite renewables sector. “It seems Britons are willing to pay more for a home with a renewable energy source so investing in a solar panel or a wind turbine could add to the resale value of a property and be as attractive to house hunters as a new kitchen or solid wood floors,” he said.
The survey also confirmed that the high upfront cost of renewable energy systems — the cheapest solar energy systems cost over £3,000 and most technologies take anything between five and 25 years to deliver a return on investment — remains the main barrier to adoption.

Hence the need for maintaining tax credits, until we have a price for CO2 that represents its full damage cost.

Original Source: World Changing

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Tags:energy prices, house prices, renewable energy, solar panels news
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Chartering the green revolution

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Ed Miliband’s 1,000-page opus is big on aspiration but short on detail, say industry chiefs, and Labour’s low-carbon dreams will remain just that without investment.

Ed Miliband, the former Cabinet Office minister and confidant of Gordon Brown, was given one of the hardest jobs in government. Chosen to head the new Department for Energy and Climate Change, he was tasked with charting a path to revolution.

New Labour has long spoken of a future in which Britain would be ringed by thousands of windmills, turning in the breeze to create pure, pollution-free power.

Dirty old coal-fired power stations would bury their harmful exhaust deep underground; underwater turbines would draw energy from the tides. Our homes would be kitted out with smart meters to give us by-the-minute updates on our energy use and carbon footprint.

The vision was there. What was missing was the detail, and it was up to Miliband and his team at the cutting-edge energy department to provide it.

Last week, he revealed the fruits of that labour. The documents comprising the latest iteration of the government’s plan for a green future weighed in at more than 1,000 pages.

They contained a few firsts. The government finally admitted in stark terms that energy bills will have to rise – by 17% for business and 8% for households – to decarbonise the economy.

It broadly laid out how the £150 billion investment required over the next 20 years will be distributed (offshore wind looks like the biggest winner).

Every government department was given a carbon budget. More than 400,000 “green jobs” are expected to be created and no fewer than half a dozen quangos will be set up to oversee the transition to deliver an 18% cut in carbon emissions from present levels by 2020.

Industry, however, was sceptical. It has seen targets come and go before. This is Labour’s fourth energy white paper since Creating a Low Carbon Economy was published in 2003. It is by far the most comprehensive but many of the hardest questions remain unanswered.

Solar at micro level, payments to homeowners to feed power into the grid could stimulate investment in solar photovoltaic (PV) The current scheme is not nearly generous enough. “It might stimulate the market but it’s not going to push it toward the explosive growth rates seen in countries like Germany,” said Leggett.

With solar PV, the UK could be generating 5% of its electricity needs by 2020. The EU intends to generate 12% of all its electricity from PV by 2020. The government’s Renewable Energy Strategy, by contrast, assumes that solar PV will contribute only about 2% of the UK’s renewable electricity by that date.

Recognising the size of the task, the government has relaxed a previously recommended timeline for achieving the transformation. The independent advisory Committee on Climate Change said this year that the power sector should remove virtually all emissions by 2030. This has now been pushed to 2050.

What is certain is that it is all going to be very expensive – and we will be footing a big chunk of the bill, either through public subsidies or higher energy bills. The government predicts an 8% rise in household energy bills, and 17% for industry.

Original Source: The Telegraph

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UK industry’s energy bills to soar

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

British industry’s energy bills are set to rise by 17 per cent over the next decade as a result of the government’s plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

The warning emerged on Wednesday as ministers set out their strategy for tackling the threat of climate change and boosting renewable energy.

Large industrial users said that energy cost increases could make British manufacturers uncompetitive, and said they were concerned that the government was putting too much reliance on wind, and not enough on nuclear power.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, on Wednesday presented a white paper setting out the government’s plans to meet its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 34 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, which he said “rises to the moral challenge of climate change”.

He said the plans would also strengthen Britain’s energy security by curbing its reliance on imported gas, and could lead to the creation of 400,000 “green jobs” by 2015.

The government wants to encourage all forms of low-carbon energy, including nuclear and “clean coal” power stations that capture and store their emissions. Over the next decade, however, the biggest change is planned for renewables, which are expected to rise from 6 per cent to 31 per cent of Britain’s electricity. That would help meet the government’s commitment to the European Union to derive 15 per cent of all Britain’s energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Most of that contribution will come from wind: the government expects its plans will lead to about 6,000 new turbines onshore and 3,000-4,000 offshore by 2020. Mr Miliband said: “The biggest threat to England’s green and pleasant land is not the wind turbine, it is climate change.”

There will also be a new support mechanism, paid for by an increase in gas bills, to encourage renewable sources of heat such as wood chips.

The cost of those measures, which will require £100bn of investment in renewable energy, is expected to add 8 per cent to average household bills, and 17 per cent to industrial bills. Energy suppliers generally welcomed the plans. Andrew Duff, chief executive of RWE Npower, said: “The UK needs a complete re-engineering of its energy infrastructure. This will come at a cost, but the cost of doing nothing will be far greater.”

However, Jeremy Nicholson of the Energy Intensive Users’ Group, representing industries such as steel and ceramics, warned that the burden on British companies would be greater than on their European competitors, because Britain has more ground to make up as its renewable energy provision is among the lowest in the EU.

Neil Bentley, the CBI’s director of business environment, said the increased cost of energy was acceptable, so long as the reduction in emissions was being delivered in the most cost-effective way. Mr Miliband promised that the government would press ahead with its new planning framework, including national policy statements of the need for energy projects such as new nuclear plants and wind farms, which are due in the autumn.

Original Source: The Financial Times

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UK energy news update

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Britain’s energy policy is in crisis, the successive failure of the UK Government to take any meaningful action on its innovative 2003 Energy Policy and its subsequent watering down in the 2007 Energy Bill has now been further compounded by it’s recent inability to make any decisions at all about anything argues Naturalchoices Editor Peter Shield.

On the upside the United Kingdom is blessed with a tremendous amount of wind power, both on and off shore wind, according to the Sustainable Development Commission, “The UK has the best and most geographically diverse wind resources in Europe, more than enough to meet current renewable energy targets”, in their report ‘Wind Power in the UK’ they find, “Onshore wind is one of the cheapest forms of renewable energy and increasing supply to 20 per cent by 2020 would present only a very modest increase in cost for consumers that compares well with other energy sources. Indeed, as fossil fuel prices increase and wind turbines become cheaper to build, wind power may even become one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation over the next 15 years.”.

After 3 years of total inaction, they undertook another re-look at their energy policy, maybe this time with the idea of actually doing something about it, the 2006 Energy Review lead to the 2007 Energy White Paper which reinserted the nuclear option.

Big energy companies have always had an on off relationship with renewables. They understand ‘traditional’ fossil fuel and nuclear plants, you put fuel in at this end it creates electricity at a fixed ratio, it is plugged into the grid in such as fashion and it yields ‘x’% return on investment over ‘y’ years. They know how to build them, run them, promote them and very importantly how to get funding from their banks, and tax breaks from governments for them. Renewables are altogether a different ball game, they involve R&D, they work with the national grid differently, they require demand side changes as well as supply side changes: In short they are a much bigger challenge, banks don’t understand them and are reluctant to fund them, and the civil servants who like the power companies themselves, were brought up on mega generators equally like to stay within their comfort zone. Last week alone we say Shell say it was going to sell its solar division, EDF and E.ON try and blackmail the British Government into lowering its commitment to renewables, and Scottish Power back away from its commitments to renewables. The UK Government is relying on these power companies to pay for its renewable commitments, and now they are saying no. Unless the Government take a firm stance both we regards to negotiations with the power companies and a renewed commitment to financially supporting renewable energy then the whole edifice could come crashing down.

The Government promised a decision on the rolling out of smart meters in May last year, they then delayed until November, they still haven’t made a decision. Dave Robinson, market development manager at smart meter developer Landis+Gyr, told The Guardian: “We’re still waiting for a decision on how this will be done and a start date for the roll-out. It’s very frustrating.”

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UK’s shortage of gas storage will cost users

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

UK’s shortage of gas storage capacity is driving up wholesale prices, leaving businesses and consumers facing higher bills in the future, energy analysts have warned.

During the recent cold snap, the gas price on the wholesale market leapt to 62p a therm, up 55 per cent from 40p in November. It eased on Friday to 45p.

Ian Parrett, of Inenco, the energy consultancy, said that the price changes reflected the fact that Britain had been drawing almost the maximum daily flow from its largest gas storage facility, at Rough in the North Sea – about 45 million cubic metres a day – to help to meet total UK demand of about 380 million cubic metres a day.

At the same time, the UK has had to compete with the rest of Europe for extra gas supplies piped in from the Continent. Supplies from both storage and piped-in imports are more expensive than the dwindling supplies from the North Sea, Mr Parrett said.

Boosting the total of storage would cut the premium on stored gas and cut Britain’s reliance on imports during periods when prices are at their highest. The Rough storage facility is down to 31 per cent of its total capacity at present.

John Hall, an independent energy analyst, said: “Compared with other European countries, the UK has hardly any storage at all. Whenever there is unusually cold weather, this becomes a problem.”

Britain’s gas storage capacity is 4.3 billion cubic metres, providing no more than 15 days of supply, against 99 days in France. The facility at Rough, 18 miles off the East Coast, accounts for most of it – three billion cubic metres of the total – but it can pump only 45 million cubic metres a day, meaning that in periods of peak demand the UK could run out of gas relatively quickly as demand outstripped supply.

Mr Parrett said that the shortage of storage is likely to force Britain to top up domestic supplies by importing gas via pipeline or ship as liquefied natural gas. In both cases, this would involve paying at a premium, pushing up costs for British consumers.

Original Source: The Telegraph

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UK gas could soon rise 40% and electricity by 20%

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Fresh warnings have emerged that oil prices could go even higher than Friday’s record close and domestic gas prices in Britain may surge by 40% on the back of the trend.

Oil saw its biggest-ever one-day price jump on Friday with a leap of more than $11 a barrel to yet another all-time high of $139.12, meaning that the cost of the fuel has risen sevenfold since 2002 and doubled in the past 12 months, raising fears of both inflation and recession in oil-consuming nations.

Website theEnergyShop.com warned over the weekend that gas prices to retail customers could soon rise 40% and electricity by 20%. On Friday, forward wholesale gas prices rose 5.3%, meaning they are up 76% in the past year.

Joe Malinowski, founder of theEnergyShop.com, said wholesale prices for gas have risen above retail prices.

“The last time wholesale gas prices broke above retail gas prices was two years ago, in June 2005. In the following 18 months energy bills rose by a record 47%. A very similar thing is going to happen this time around, except that the money value of the increase is going to be even higher,” he said.

Prices look set to open higher this morning after Mohammad Ali Khatibi, Iran’s representative at the oil producers’ cartel Opec, forecast yesterday that prices would hit the $150 a barrel mark by the end of summer.

Similarly bullish comments came from Shokri Ghanem, head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, who said there were no moves within Opec, which pumps a third of the world’s oil, to increase supplies further. “I think it [the oil price] will go higher. That is a trend that will continue for some time. The easy, cheap oil is over, peak oil is looming,” Ghanem said, referring to the theory that world oil supplies may be about to peak and start declining.

Ghanem added, however, that oil prices were rising at the moment for other reasons, such as speculation and concern over political tension in the Middle East.

Energy ministers of the Group of Eight rich nations failed over the weekend to back Gordon Brown’s demand to urge Opec to increase supplies of crude oil.

Instead the ministers, meeting in Japan with non-G8 countries China, India and South Korea, which jointly with the G8 consume two-thirds of the world’s oil, talked of the need to promote energy efficiency.

“We will continue to vigorously promote policies and measures for improving energy efficiency,” they said.

Surging oil and food prices over the past couple of years have pushed up inflation in many countries at a time when economies are slowing, preventing central banks such as the Bank of England and European Central Bank from cutting interest rates to head off recession.

Governments around the world are struggling with street protests and even riots against rising food and petrol prices. In Britain, pump prices are already at record highs, leading to pressure on the chancellor, Alistair Darling, to scrap a planned 2p a litre fuel duty rise scheduled for October – even though that would make little difference to prices. Diesel is already more than £1.30 a litre in many parts of the country.

Airlines are warning that they cannot make money with fuel prices at these levels and many expect to plunge into losses. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has predicted that several European airlines will go out of business and US carriers have signalled they are to start charging for baggage.

The aerospace group Boeing warned yesterday that orders for its new planes were “on a knife edge”.

However, the US energy secretary, Sam Bodman, acknowledged at the weekend that the Bush government was powerless: “There are relatively few things we can do short term.”

The German economy minister, Michael Glos, said yesterday he was worried at the rapid rise in oil prices and wanted greater international cooperation on the issue.

Original Source: The Guardian

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Tags:electricity prices, energy news UK, energy prices, high energy price, uk gas
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As north sea oil and gas fields are running dry…

Friday, June 6th, 2008

UK energy suppliers will probably raise household natural gas and electricity prices for the next two years, fueling inflation that’s already near the highest in a decade, futures trading shows.

Natural gas for delivery this winter costs 54 percent more than utilities paid at the start of the year and futures contracts for the winter that starts in 2009 traded higher still, according to London-based broker ICAP Plc. Household energy bills, which increased about 15 percent in the first quarter, will rise to catch up, consumer group Energywatch said.

Rising utility costs will increase pressure on Bank of England Governor Mervyn King as he seeks to contain inflation that’s running at 3 percent and is forecast to exceed the government’s target for months to come. Centrica Plc, Britain’s largest energy supplier, said last month that first-half profit will drop because of higher fuel.

“The gas price has gone through the roof,” said Simon Edrich, a utilities analyst at ING Bank NV in London. “Everyone will need to raise prices to cover higher input costs. It adds to the inflationary pressures very significantly.”

Gas prices for U.K. households more than doubled since 2003 to an average 646 pounds ($1,264) a year, while electricity bills are 69 percent higher. The average household now spends 1,058 pounds a year on power and fuel, according to Energywatch.

King said on May 14 that record food and fuel prices will push inflation above the government’s 3 percent limit “for several quarters.” Policy makers kept the main interest rate unchanged at 5 percent yesterday and predicted that economic growth will slow to about a 1 percent annual pace in the first quarter of 2009, the lowest since 1992.

The UK is competing with buyers in Asia and Europe for gas supplies delivered by tanker and pipeline because North Sea fields are running dry. Offshore production in the U.K. fell 10 percent last year, according to the government.

Wholesale gas prices, which more than doubled in the last year, rose with Asian demand and the cost of oil. Crude in London has advanced 36 percent this year and reached a record $135.14 a barrel on May 22.

Reducing emissions and replacing older power plants will add to energy bills, Paul Golby, chief executive officer of Dusseldorf, Germany-based E.ON AG’s U.K. unit, told reporters June 3.

Centrica, based in Windsor, said May 12 that “stubbornly high” fuel costs will lower first-half earnings. Chief Executive Officer Sam Laidlaw said a price increase “looks inevitable.”

Forward gas contracts for delivery this winter reached a record 94.75 pence a therm on May 27 and traded at 94.25 pence today, according to ICAP. Gas for the 2009-2010 winter rose to a record 95.80 pence on May 27.

Electricity for delivery in the winter ahead traded at a record 84.25 pounds a megawatt hour today, more than double the price a year ago. Gas and power prices peak during winter months as colder temperatures spur demand for heat.

Scottish & Southern Energy Plc, the second-largest supplier, is “losing money at current retail prices and current wholesale prices,” Ian Marchant, CEO of the Perth, England- based company, said in a conference call on May 29. “There has to be an adjustment to one or the other, or both.”

Higher utility bills may compound challenges facing Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose Labour Party trails the opposition Conservatives in polls by the most since the 1980s.

Darling’s Promise

The British government announced measures to help the poorest consumers cope with rising prices. Chancellor Alistair Darling promised to increase payments to the elderly and brokered an agreement on support with the country’s six biggest suppliers.

“I’m very worried about the high cost of energy, I’m worried about it at a macro level in terms of the impact on the economy,” UK Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said in an interview on June 4. “We’re doing our best to protect the most vulnerable.”

Darling also held a meeting with the energy regulator to establish whether price increases by retailers are justified. The Office of Gas & Electricity Markets subsequently announced a probe into the energy markets, which are also being studied by a group of lawmakers.

“It’s accepted throughout the industry that there will be price increases,” Georgina Walsh, a spokeswoman for Energywatch, said in an interview. “It would be catastrophic” for the poorest consumers, she said.

Original Source: Bloomberg

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UK facing a whopping 64 per cent rise in gas prices

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Energy companies are poised to exacerbate conditions for consumers who are already struggling with rising day to day living costs with further increases to tariffs this year, it has been claimed.

According to energyhelpline, the average family’s gas bill is set to rise as a result of wholesale gas prices doubling recently.

This in turn could drive the typical gas bill up from £665 to £1,091 per year, the site predicts.

Last night Mark Todd, director of website energyhelpline.com, says: “If the wholesale price is passed to the consumer, the UK could be facing a whopping 64 per cent rise in gas prices.”

News of the increases comes after UK energy companies have already introduced double digit increases on their tariffs, despite an outcry from consumer groups who questioned the justification for the rises given the huge operating profits reported by the firms.

Price comparison sites have urged consumers affected by the increases to shop around for a better deal with an alternative provider.

Original Source: Financial Advice

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UK energy crunch, solar panels & earth news

Posts Tagged ‘energy prices’

People pay more for a house with solar panels

Chartering the green revolution

UK industry’s energy bills to soar

UK energy news update

UK’s shortage of gas storage will cost users

UK gas could soon rise 40% and electricity by 20%

As north sea oil and gas fields are running dry…

UK facing a whopping 64 per cent rise in gas prices

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