THE GREENEST DEALS
Some tariffs include electricity from 100 per cent renewable sources, and some offset the carbon dioxide emissions from the gas you use.
Confusingly though, when you buy a 100 per cent renewable package, it doesn't guarantee that the company will produce any additional renewable energy. It could simply mean that someone else, on a standard tariff, gets a bit less renewable energy.
Companies that confirm they do not divert renewable energy from other tariffs include Good Energy and Utilita.
Ecotricity's energy is not all renewable, but, for every £1 spent by customers, the company has invested at least £1 in building new wind turbines.
These `darker green' products are among the most expensive, so there is a trade-off between how much you want to spend on fuel and how green you want to be.
GOVERNMENT ACTION
In March 2007, providers only sourced around five per cent of electricity from renewables. The government wants this figure to increase to 20 per cent by 2020. Energy regulator Ofgem is devising a voluntary scheme showing the fuel mix and carbon footprint of fuel tariffs. It hopes to launch it later this year.
full article
Thursday 7 August 2008
Tuesday 5 August 2008
Poorest targeted with energy-saving schemes
Ministers are examining a raft of green energy measures, including bringing forward a £2.75bn home insulation programme funded by energy companies, to protect Britain's poorest from the impact of rising gas and electricity prices.
They are looking at the idea of front-loading a scheme known as the carbon emissions reduction target (Cert) so that more money is spent sooner by energy companies, with a greater proportion of the funding going to the fuel-poor.
The three-year programme promotes reductions in carbon emissions for households by installing energy efficiency measures such as cavity wall and loft insulation in the homes of people on low incomes and the elderly. It is designed to raise more than £2bn from the energy companies over three years, but could be front-loaded so that more is spent this year and next.
Ministers may also publish a general consultation paper on windfall taxes on the profits of the energy utility companies, but that is not the preferred option of the chancellor, Alistair Darling, or of the Department of Business and Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) led by John Hutton.
Last week Centrica, the parent company of British Gas announced a 35% price increase, sending shudders through Whitehall. The average British household now faces annual gas and electricity bills of more than £1,200, driving tens of thousands into fuel poverty.
Ministers are also looking at restoring cuts in the Warm Front programme, a package of measures worth up to £2,700 for vulnerable homeowners or for those on benefits. Funding for the programme, designed to cover insulation and central heating, has been cut by 16% from £350m in 2007-8 to £295m in 2008-9, a cut already criticised by the Berr select committee and one that Gordon Brown has already hinted he may reverse.
full article
They are looking at the idea of front-loading a scheme known as the carbon emissions reduction target (Cert) so that more money is spent sooner by energy companies, with a greater proportion of the funding going to the fuel-poor.
The three-year programme promotes reductions in carbon emissions for households by installing energy efficiency measures such as cavity wall and loft insulation in the homes of people on low incomes and the elderly. It is designed to raise more than £2bn from the energy companies over three years, but could be front-loaded so that more is spent this year and next.
Ministers may also publish a general consultation paper on windfall taxes on the profits of the energy utility companies, but that is not the preferred option of the chancellor, Alistair Darling, or of the Department of Business and Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) led by John Hutton.
Last week Centrica, the parent company of British Gas announced a 35% price increase, sending shudders through Whitehall. The average British household now faces annual gas and electricity bills of more than £1,200, driving tens of thousands into fuel poverty.
Ministers are also looking at restoring cuts in the Warm Front programme, a package of measures worth up to £2,700 for vulnerable homeowners or for those on benefits. Funding for the programme, designed to cover insulation and central heating, has been cut by 16% from £350m in 2007-8 to £295m in 2008-9, a cut already criticised by the Berr select committee and one that Gordon Brown has already hinted he may reverse.
full article
Sunday 3 August 2008
Energy giants are told to pay back billions
ENERGY companies are overcharging customers by as much as £1 billion a year in defiance of European Union rules, it was claimed last week.
Lawyers said the breach could lead to consumers taking their utility firms to court to reclaim hundreds of pounds, in an echo of last year’s revolt over bank charges.
The 10m customers who pay by cash or cheque every quarter are being charged £699m more than is justifiable, according to a report from a committee of MPs last week. Pre-payment meter customers, including those with second homes, are paying up to £400m more.
The excess is in breach of an EU directive which states that any difference between payment methods should reflect the cost to the supplier. This is only £20 even though suppliers charge up to £69 more, MPs say.
Graham Kerr of watchdog Energywatch said: “I expect consumers to demand lower payments or even ask for a refund in the same way as bank-charge customers.”
The MPs on the Business and Enterprise committee called for suppliers to be forced to lower tariffs through price controls if they fail to act in 12 months.
This follows British Gas’s decision to raise gas bills by an average of 35% and electricity tariffs by 9%, increasing the average bill by about £267 a year — the highest ever single increase. About 1.6m of the firm’s customers who pay by direct debit have seen a steeper increase of 42%. Customers in London, the Midlands and East Anglia have suffered a rise of almost 44%.
full article
Lawyers said the breach could lead to consumers taking their utility firms to court to reclaim hundreds of pounds, in an echo of last year’s revolt over bank charges.
The 10m customers who pay by cash or cheque every quarter are being charged £699m more than is justifiable, according to a report from a committee of MPs last week. Pre-payment meter customers, including those with second homes, are paying up to £400m more.
The excess is in breach of an EU directive which states that any difference between payment methods should reflect the cost to the supplier. This is only £20 even though suppliers charge up to £69 more, MPs say.
Graham Kerr of watchdog Energywatch said: “I expect consumers to demand lower payments or even ask for a refund in the same way as bank-charge customers.”
The MPs on the Business and Enterprise committee called for suppliers to be forced to lower tariffs through price controls if they fail to act in 12 months.
This follows British Gas’s decision to raise gas bills by an average of 35% and electricity tariffs by 9%, increasing the average bill by about £267 a year — the highest ever single increase. About 1.6m of the firm’s customers who pay by direct debit have seen a steeper increase of 42%. Customers in London, the Midlands and East Anglia have suffered a rise of almost 44%.
full article
Giant kites to tap power of the high wind
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at Stanford University's Carnegie Institution, has estimated that the total energy contained in wind is 100 times the amount needed by everyone on the planet. But most of this energy is at high altitude.
The blades of modern commercial windmills sit around 80 metres from the ground, where the wind speed is almost five metres per second. At 800 metres, however, wind speed rises to seven metres per second, potentially generating considerably more energy.
It would be virtually impossible to build a standard turbine to take advantage of the wind at 800 metres, but kites could easily get to these heights. Furthermore, thanks to the high-speed jet stream, countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark are particularly suited to flying kites.
'Pretty much anywhere in the UK you could run a kite plant economically, but you couldn't run a wind turbine economically,' said Allister Furey of the University of Sussex, who develops computer control mechanisms to maximise the power generated from kites.
A kite generates power by pulling on a string attached to generators on the ground. When it has reached its maximum height, it is reeled back down to repeat the process.
Using computer models, Furey has worked out that flying kites in a figure of eight pattern means the air flowing over them travels even faster than the ambient wind speed. When a kite needs to be reeled in, it is angled so that it falls out of the sky like a glider, without the need for much power. Ockels's system uses these flying patterns to maximise the power the kites can generate. He is also looking at extending his basic prototype to use multiple kites that yo-yo: when one goes up, another goes down. Ockels estimates that kites could generate power at less than 4p per kilowatt-hour, which is comparable to coal power and less than half the cost of electricity from wind turbines.
full article
The blades of modern commercial windmills sit around 80 metres from the ground, where the wind speed is almost five metres per second. At 800 metres, however, wind speed rises to seven metres per second, potentially generating considerably more energy.
It would be virtually impossible to build a standard turbine to take advantage of the wind at 800 metres, but kites could easily get to these heights. Furthermore, thanks to the high-speed jet stream, countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark are particularly suited to flying kites.
'Pretty much anywhere in the UK you could run a kite plant economically, but you couldn't run a wind turbine economically,' said Allister Furey of the University of Sussex, who develops computer control mechanisms to maximise the power generated from kites.
A kite generates power by pulling on a string attached to generators on the ground. When it has reached its maximum height, it is reeled back down to repeat the process.
Using computer models, Furey has worked out that flying kites in a figure of eight pattern means the air flowing over them travels even faster than the ambient wind speed. When a kite needs to be reeled in, it is angled so that it falls out of the sky like a glider, without the need for much power. Ockels's system uses these flying patterns to maximise the power the kites can generate. He is also looking at extending his basic prototype to use multiple kites that yo-yo: when one goes up, another goes down. Ockels estimates that kites could generate power at less than 4p per kilowatt-hour, which is comparable to coal power and less than half the cost of electricity from wind turbines.
full article
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