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Posts Tagged ‘uk energy pricing’

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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Tags:energy news UK, energy prices, solar panels, uk energy pricing
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Solar panels boost business goals

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Tracy Hother runs Sameday, a courier service that likes to think of itself as friends with the planet. At their offices in Knutsford, Cheshire, they monitor their hot water usage, use minimal artificial lighting, do not heat spaces unnecessarily, and switch unused appliances off.

But Ms Hother is not a die hard green. She is a self proclaimed “penny pinching” manager who estimates that her frugality reduces her energy bills by 40% a year.

In these icy economic times, Tracy’s example may well be one to be followed.

The current downturn is seeing businesses, big and small, cutting costs at every possible opportunity.

Bad news for employees, perhaps. But good news for the planet.

The Federation of Small Business reports that over 99% of UK businesses employ less than 10 people. The Carbon Trust reveals small to medium businesses as generators of a quarter of the UK’s CO2 emissions.

Both agree that it is important for both the economy and the environment that these businesses make an effort to go green.

But for smaller businesses, reaping the rewards means first embarking on green initiatives.

And that is not always easy.

“One of the biggest barriers for small businesses is trust and belief in the methods and results,” says James Millar, environmental advisor for the Forum of Private Business.

It is hard to associate small actions, such as Tracy Hother’s, with potentially substantial rewards.

Sustainability boxes

Reducing costs was also the motivation of Premier Foods during the energy price rises of 2006.

They embarked on a two-year project that reduced the energy usage in the heating and cooling of products.

The producer of foods for well known brands such as Bachelors and Cambell was working in collaboration with a Nottingham University graduate, arranged by the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP).

As energy prices fell again, other benefits of the project were revealed as Premier Foods was then, because of the project, considered to be a leader business in its field.

This resulted in increased commercial security during a time when many food manufacturing plants were facing closure.

“In order to be an exemplary business these days, you have to be able to tick the sustainability boxes,” advises Andrew Darwent, supervisor of the partnership at KTP.

Dr Debbie Buckley-Golder, KTP Programme Director, agrees.

“We are seeing an increasing number of companies turning to KTP to find innovative ways of reducing costs…. and strengthening their environmental credentials”.

Their motivation is to “not only survive the recession, but come out the other side leaner and fitter”. Another challenge comes from lack of understanding.

In uncertain times, businesses are less likely to try out new, unfamiliar ways of operating, “especially if it involves an initial cost”, and would rather stick to what they know, says Mr Millar.

Nick Tims, manager of War on Waste, recyclable waste collection service, has reverted back to the security of collecting regular waste.

“We know people will always need their normal waste collecting,” he says.

“It’s just easier than trying to expand and find more clients to stay afloat.”

Despite this, Mr Millar has observed that “the ambition of what people want to do is excellent”. This is evident in the increase in enquires received by government funded consultancies such as Envirowise, who observe that “as the threat of a recession became more likely, businesses actively looked for ways to save money”.

“This was evident in increased [Envirowise] website registrations and more demand for events”.

But the effectiveness of these services has been called into question, with the FPB claiming that such agencies are not properly equipped, and the FSB suggesting that they are built on an incorrect model.

“All too often [managers] are stopped from adopting green practices by ill thought out regulation that fails to take account of the needs and characteristics of small businesses,” Mr Millar says.

Even Sameday’s Ms Hother is finding lack of government support a barrier, with an absence of infrastructure and government provided impetus preventing her from converting her fleet to biofuel powered vehicles.

Even for those businesses that do overcome these barriers and want to actually invest in greening their operations, the financing is largely unavailable.

“As the reality of recession took hold towards the latter end of last year… Envirowise noticed a slowdown in interest in projects where longer term investment was required,” says spokesperson Charlotte Knowles.

High Street banks have been turning down loan applications as credit has dried up and directing people towards those that have been surviving the economic downturn.

Triodos Bank, whose mission is to “make money work for positive social, environmental and cultural change”, is one of those.

As a result, it “has seen a marked increase in enquirers for funding and investments in the renewable sector,” says marketing manager Jane Clarke.

“All loans that we give have to go through an ‘in principle’ decision and this is based on whether we feel that the business/organisation is enhancing the world in either a social, cultural or environmental manner,” she says.

This, combined with the increasing volume of applications, means that many green projects are being put on hold or cancelled. racy Hother, FSB and other industry insiders agree that the missing link in the chain is big business.

“Big businesses could learn a lot from small businesses like us,” says Ms Hother, insisting that people such as herself cannot rely on the government.

Instead, they look to big business as they have the ability to adopt and scale up green practices already tried and tested by smaller, more agile businesses.

According to Emma Goss-Custard of environmentally friendly Honeybuns bakery, “there is a real opportunity for ‘big businesses’ [to] kick-start the industry and make it easier for small business to access more environmentally friendly products.”

As a big business representative, Susan Kendal, sustainability director at Akzo Nobel, contributes to the consensus, saying that even with “a planet that is dying around us”, government as well as big and small businesses need to realise that green projects simply “make good business sense”.

Original Source: BBC News

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