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During May the price of gas and electricity fell despite oil and coal rising. Day-ahead electricity contracts were down from an average of £43.9/MWh in April to £41.9/MWh in May due to an increase in supply and a lower demand than usual. A healthy supply also pushed gas prices down with day-ahead prices falling by 5.6% from April to average 44.2p/th.

With oil prices down by almost half over the past year, OPEC currently have a split camp on what to do with supply levels, although one side is a lot more influential. On one side sits Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, who can all produce oil very cheap and can afford the war on price with the US and Russia. This is the most influential side for the simple fact that they have Saudi Arabia in their camp, who sit on the worlds largest supply of oil.

With the December 2015 Paris climate talks looming, the United Stated have launched a number of green energy initiatives aimed as decreasing carbon emissions and accelerating investment in green technology.

The US are aiming to double their renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro electric by 2030, and the US Energy Secretary Ernist Moniz has met with global leaders to discuss this at The Six Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM6) and The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA).

Following on from our post which compared the electricity production in France to the UK, which showed the huge investment France has put into nuclear power, this month we have compared the United Kingdom with the United States, and they are almost identical.

Putting aside that the United States produces a lot more electricity than the United Kingdom, due to it being a larger country, the percentages of both country’s electricity production portfolio are very similar. Both countries have a huge emphasis of coal and gas, showing they are still very dependant on fossil fuels.

Ikea has announced that it has hit its target to use 100% renewable energy across all of their Nordic operations by 2015, and remain on course to produce as much renewable energy as they use worldwide by 2020.

Energy leaders around the world have called for a global emissions target to be set. Recently countries such as the US and the UK have set targets for emissions, with the United States pledging to cut its emissions by 26%-28% by 2025, however, energy leaders state this is not enough and a global target must be set.

This comes amidst an expected huge increase in emissions from countries such as India, Brazil and China, who will use more and more energy, transferring into more emissions.

A recent study by the Federation of Small Businesses has found that 90% of small businesses want to be more energy efficient. Two reason came on top for wanting to save the energy with making savings leading the way and saving the environment coming second.

A recent study has found that 60% of companies have not budgeted for ESOS, this comes five months after a report found that a majority of companies who needed to comply had not even heard of the scheme. The ESOS scheme requires companies that have more than 250 employees or a revenue greater than £42.5 million a year to complete an energy audit by December this year. It is expected to apply to around 7,000 businesses across the UK.

Saudi Arabia’s attempt to keep their dominant market position has resulted in them exporting their highest amount of oil for over 10 years. Recent pressure from the Unites States shale oil boom boosted supplies in the market, which was one of the causes of the recent fall in prices.

Experts had stated that the Saudi’s had deliberately aloud the price of oil to fall to slow down the amount of shale oil produced in the United States, due to the high production cost of fracking.

It has been announced by SSE that they will close their Ferrbridge Coal Power Plant by March 2016, after in was confirmed the companies profits had remained flat over the last 12 months. SSE have blamed the flat profits on competition from smaller companies in the market, with them loosing 500,000 customers in the period.

The UK has peen praised by the Colombian Vice Minster of Finance for it energy policies, who stated that they have based their energy policy model on the UK’s. This comes in the same week that David Cameron declared the UK’s Green Investment bank as a world leader.

25 years ago the Colombians took the UK model and made it work for the South American country whose energy make-up was a lot different to the UK’s. Colombia produces 85% of its electricity from water, which is a lot different to the UK’s.

The UK’s Green Investment Bank has been praised by David Cameron who stated that it is ‘leading the world’. The bank was the first of its kind, which offers funding to green projects through the UK. It was set up by the coalition government in 2012, with £3.8 billion in funding from the government.

The Green Investment Bank has its headquarters in Edinburgh, which came out on top of a number a other cities, and has backed over 45 new green projects since 2012 including onshore and offshore wind.

Gas demand was reduced throughout April due to higher temperatures than normal, which then fed through to prices. Day ahead contracts decreased 1% month on month to average 46.9p/th, month ahead contracts followed a similar pattern decreasing 3% averaging 45.6p/th. High LNG stocks are expected to be topped up throughout May, increasing the supply further.

The falls in day ahead and month ahead fed through to long term contracts with annual October 15 contracts decreasing 0.5% to average 47p/th.

An anti-fracking advert by Greenpeace has been banned by the UK Watchdog for claiming that fracking will not reduce energy prices. The investigation into the advert found that the claim did not have enough evidence and would confuse the public into thinking that experts had stated that fracking would defiantly not reduce energy prices.

With the world wondering how long Saudi Arabia will allow oil prices to stay at their current levels, the country’s oil minister released in a statement that ‘only Allah knows’, which was perhaps not the news the world was waiting for. The statement was made in an attempt to fend off criticism that Saudi Arabia are keeping oil prices low on purpose.

The UK and France are two countries that are very closely related in a number of senses, however, their electricity production and energy policies couldnt be more different. In 2012 only 8% of France's electricity production came from fossil fuels with a huge 75% coming from nuclear power. This is a stark comparision to the UK which had 68% of its electritity production coming from fossil fuels and only 19% coming from nuclear.

The UK is facing millions of pounds of fines from the European Commission for failing to hit its target of reducing levels of Nitrogen Dioxide. The Supreme Court has rules that urgent action must be taken.

The Department of Environment must now submit new plans to cut air pollution in the UK, with diesel vehicles expected to be a target with them omitting huge quantities of Nitrogen Dioxide.

The US is set to flood world markets with liquefied natural gas with quantities that will rival the likes of Russia. This comes after announcements that they plan to become net gas exporters instead of net gas importers by as early as 2017 due to the rapid growth of the shale gas industry.

Over a fifth of Labour and Lib Dem candidates have said that they will oppose fracking despite their parties supporting it. This came to light when ‘The Pledge’ was circulated by green piece which asked the candidates if they will appose fracking if their constituency will be an area that will be fracked, or appose fracking nationwide if their constituency isn’t an area that will be fracked. Among the Lib Dems who signed there was 7 of the frond bench.

Oil prices hit $65 per barrel for the first time in four months during Monday trading. The rise has been put down to unrest in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia continuing its air strikes in Yemen, and also a slowdown in US shale production.

Experts expect oil to return to levels of $70 per barrel over the next month, which is bad news for the consumers at the pumps. This is a stark comparison to the downward trend seen over the past 6 months, although prices had levelled off throughout March.