Latest Views
The Green Deal - Banker's delight
The Green Deal – Banker's delight The Green Deal was launched on the 28th January 2013 without fanfare and accompanied by howls of industry criticism. So far take up has been modest and is likely to remain so since the scheme is fatally flawed. The Green Deal Finance company is the provider of investment finance for Green Deal Providers who contract with consumers. They announced on the 25th of January 2013 that the effective interest rates that they would be charging Green Deal Providers on Green Deal loans would be between 7.67% and 9.34%. On top of this there may be administrative............
What is on the horizon for 2013?
What can we expect in 2013? Looking forward to the coming year a couple of developments can be spotted on the horizon which could have a major impact on energy for business and for the consumer. 1. The Green Deal. This should gather pace during the year and allow small and medium sized businesses and householders the opportunity to invest in the infrastructure to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings without any upfront capital investment. The promise, The "Golden Rule", is of a deal where the energy savings are greater than the premiums to be charged on the electricity bill to............
How businesses can cut their energy bills when prices are rising
Gas and Electricity prices are on the up again Gas and Electricity prices are rising again, and with the enormous investments needed in nuclear generation, renewable generation and building back up generation for when the wind does not blow, subsidising renewable heat technologies, and expanding electricity networks to cope with the electrification of heat and transport prices are set to continue to rise in the future. The energy forecaster research barometer showed that : If business energy prices were to rise by 15% every year, 90% of businesses say it would have an impact on them: 30% say it would be catastrophic or............
How can smart systems improve energy efficiency and cut costs?
Smart systems can employ two complementary mechanisms to deliver higher efficiency and lower costs: 1. Enjoying the same level of comfort at lower cost Smart meters, which show electricity and gas use in real time on a display unit in the home empower consumers by enabling them to see energy use in kilowatt hours, and more importantly in £'s in real time. This gives instant feedback on how much it costs to boil the kettle - and how much can be saved by only boiling the quantity of water needed. It shows the building occupants how much they are continuing to spend............
Is wasting energy really the best policy?
Do you realise that when you switch on the lights and run your PC that the bulk of your electricity will be coming from hydrocarbon based generation source such as one of the large scale combined cycle gas generation turbine (CCGT) station, or from a coal fired power station. Do you also realise that a recent BBC study calculated that 65% of the energy input to these power stations is lost either through the inability to use the waste heat produced during generation, or through losses in the transmission and distribution system. This means that more than double the amount of............
The New Hydrogen Revolution?
If I was reading an energy and utilities review 15 years ago I would have been reading about the Hydrogerevolution. Hydrogen was to be the fuel of the future, the Hydrogen economy was in vogue. But fashions change and all the excitement evaporated as progress was slower than anticipated. However, the fundamental challenge of transforming the sector into an economically viable low carbon industry is now firmly in the spotlight and both technologies have a role to play which are potentially closely intertwined. Today, Hydrogen has dropped off the headlines to be replaced by the advent of the “electrification of heat and transport”. New developments on the hydrogen front include............
Green Deal - Platinum Principle
Green Deal needs a Platinum Standard The Green Deal, about to be launched in October 2012, is the scheme whereby housing occupiers will be able to fit a variety of energy efficiency measures to their homes. This will commence with insulation but possibly/probably moving on to renewable generation such as heat pumps and other technologies. This will be paid for out of a loan secured on the meter point/property rather than the individual. The law enabling this is expected to get Royal Assent in autumn 2010. To get a feel for the scale of this opportunity the plan is to encourage the financing of investments of the order of £5000............
Tariffing complexity - the RECAP alternative
In their Retail Market Review – Findings and Initial Proposals document1 OFGEM state that they are minded to insist that the energy retail industry moves to a single standard form of tariff. This is predicated on “Behavioural Economics” findings which are reported in OFGEM’s discussion paper on “What can behavioural economics say about GB energy consumers?” The behavioural economics conundrum Whilst everything in the logic on how consumers behave rings true what is missing is an examination of the full range of appropriate............
Tales of the unexpected
Tariff Simplification The proposed standard tariff format Utility Weeks’s reporting of OFGEM’s latest move to try and ensure that consumers get a better deal from UK energy retail markets highlights one proposed reform in the area of tariff simplification. The article in Utility Week stated that: “Ofgem wants to restrict the number of tariffs for standard products from each supplier, to just one per payment method. It would standardise the format of the tariffs, with suppliers allowed to compete on just a single "per unit" price.” I presume that OFGEM’s logic is that simple and standardised tariffs make price comparison easier and therefore make it............
Assuring Smart Energy Services
In September 2010 Sam Laidlaw, CEO of Centrica who are the market leaders (as British Gas) in the UK and a major player in the US through Direct Energy, made a historic speech in which he put forward the view that the old utility model was dead. His clear vision is that the new Utility model is based on helping customers use less, in this case energy. This might at first appear counter-intuitive given an energy retailer's interest in selling energy. However, he sees a transformation taking place. He envisages a shift from energy companies selling energy, to energy companies selling the services............
Can car pools kick-start the take up of EVs?
In Malcolm Gladwell's book "The tipping point" he illustrates the apparent law of nature that social phenomena need to reach a critical mass to then experience exponential growth and become a dominant feature within society. It is interesting to look at two such phenomena which today at the nascent stage of development but which could potentially reach a tipping point and become a normal feature of our lives. These two phenomena are: • Car share pools • Electric vehicles What do I mean by “Car share pools”? These are the companies who have recently started offering you use of a car “by the hour” rather............
Smart homes - lights out!
I was scheduled to speak on Smart metering at an EU Smart Metering conference in Amsterdam in June. Having seen a number of initiatives being put forward to link up intelligent home controllers to market prices I thought it would be interesting to build a model of what could happen given the feedback loops in the Smart system. I asked my colleague, George Danner of the Business laboratory if he would build a model for me using the mathematical formalisms suited to modelling complex dynamic systems. This he did and so I was able to demonstrate how daily demand and market prices............
Green Investment Bank
The Green Investment Bank Commission has just issued its report on how the UK should organise itself to be able to raise the finance to take the country down the road to a low carbon future. The amount that needs to be raised is staggering. £550 billion over the next 10 years – that is £55 billion a year. To put this in a national context this is 4% of GDP (£1.4 trillion 2007, source ONS Blue Book 2009) – significant but not overwhelming. So you could say – how can we possibly afford this in the midst of our financial crisis? This............