Business energy

The number of new independent renewable energy projects in the UK has fallen to its lowest level in five years as Government subsidies are reduced. It was expected that the number of new projects would reduce with less Government funding available, however, the sector has slowed dramatically.

The Government's feed-in tariff, which pays households and businesses that generate electricity by means that do not deplete natural resources, will end in 2019. This will make independent renewable energy projects even less appealing to households and businesses.

Fastned have announced they won a tender with the UK’s North East Combined Authority to build two fast charging plug-in power stations in the North East of England. The fast charging stations will be built in Sunderland and Newcastle and will provide the region with the infrastructure to cope with the expected increase in electric vehicles over the next decade. Under Government plans announced last year people living in the UK will not be able to buy petrol or diesel cars from 2040.

The leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, has announced this week that she plans on creating a publicly owned not-for-profit electricity supplier which will operate in Scotland. The supplier will only sell renewable energy. She believes this will make energy more affordable for poorer income families and help get people out of fuel poverty.

Last month the UK Government announced that it will be banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars in a bid to reduce the amount of pollution in cities across the country. The levels of harmful pollution in areas of London and other major cities is the cause of a large number of deaths every year.

On the 28th of June, we were nominated for consultancy of the year at the 2017 TELCA award. This was the third year in a row we had been nominated at the industry’s leading awards ceremony. In 2015 we were nominated for the most trusted consultancy award, in 2016 we were nominated for the best customer service award and this year we were nominated for the prestigious consultancy of the year award.

The UK’s oil and gas industry has warned the Prime Minister that the cost of a hard Brexit on the industry could be £500 million a year. This would be if the UK found itself using World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, which would increase the cost of trading oil and gas from £600 million a year to £1.1 billion.

Ofgem has announced that it will be bringing in legislation which will prevent energy suppliers from back billing their customers by more than 12 months. Back billing is when an energy supplier charges a customer for energy when they discover a fault in previous bills. This usually happens when a supplier has charged a customer for an estimated read, when in reality they have used much more than that.

The UK Chancellor Philip Hammond announced the spring budget last week and with it a number of policies which effect the energy industry. The UK will be making a transition into a low carbon economy, which will cost around £12.6bn by 2020 and the government plans to recover this money by increasing environmental taxes.

It has been announced that the UK will double the amount of electricity it receives from France after plans to build a £1.1 billion cross channel cable was given the go ahead. The cable will be privately funded and will run from near Portsmouth in the UK to Le Havre in France.

The company behind the investment have said that the cable will come online in 2021 and will supply the UK with up to 2 gigawatts of electricity, the equivalent of the power for up to four million homes.

The National Grid has talked about a smart energy revolution in recent weeks, but what is smart energy and how will it have an affect on the UK’s energy system? In recent years technology advances in the energy industry have been accelerating dramatically and it is hoped that these advances will reduce the UK’s need to build more power stations.

What is smart energy?