Featured Posts
Time to accept that wind farm costs are not falling
There has been a consistent narrative that the cost of building new wind farms is falling, with falling subsidy [...]
Windfall tax harms oil and gas production and must be cut
In May last year, the UK Government introduced a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies [...]
Why Norway’s views on energy security should ring alarm bells across Europe
Norway's energy security would appear to be a done deal, yet the past couple of years have been very [...]
Addressing the high real cost of renewable generation
Over the past few months we have been inundated with claims from interested parties that more renewables are the [...]
Recent Posts
National Grid exits gas and aims to buy WPD
This morning, National Grid has announced the acquisition of Western Power Distribution (“WPD”), the largest of Britain’s distribution network operators (“DNOs”), in a move that signals a transformation for the company and for the GB electricity system more broadly. [...]
Another BritNed outage illustrates the risks of the current offshore infrastructure regime
The 1 GW BritNed interconnector linking GB with the Netherlands has suffered another fault and is expected to be out of service until late April, meaning it has spent much of this winter out of action. In addition to [...]
UK ETS auctions to launch in May with higher reserve price
Last week saw some updates to the new UK Emissions Trading Scheme (“UK ETS”) which is set to replace the EU ETS which the UK left on 1 January when Brexit took effect. The Government has published participation guidance, [...]
Drones and droids: automated power system monitoring
When people talk about digitisation in energy the things that spring to mind are often use of sensors to gather more granular consumption information, and more sophisticated market and system data platforms, allowing new forms of trading and optimisation. [...]
New consumer protection proposals unlikely to work for energy sector
Last week saw the publication of a review by Conservative MP John Penrose into how the UK’s approach to competition and consumer issues could be improved, to strengthen consumer protections and stimulate competition. Penrose has previously called for existing [...]
When security of supply is the most important thing
The importance of security of supply has been underlined this week by events in the US state of Texas which has been hit by extensive power outages as unprecedented cold weather saw temperatures fall as low as -22 oC, [...]
Synchronous condensers help stabilise the GB electricity grid
This month, Statkraft and ABB announced the construction of two synchronous condensers on Lister Driver in Liverpool. The Lister Drive project will provide a range of grid stabilisation services to National Grid ESO, including inertia, short circuit current and [...]
Getting building energy performance right is essential for net zero – part III
This is the final post in my series on the energy performance of buildings. The first two (here and here) dealt with issues relating to the fabric of buildings, while in this post I will look at the behaviour [...]
Getting building energy performance right is essential for net zero – part II
This is the second post in my series on the energy performance of buildings. The first looked at the Government's primary building energy target, measured by the flawed Energy Performance Certificate. This post will look at the wider issues [...]
Getting building energy performance right is essential for net zero – part I
Buildings are the second largest contributor to UK emissions at just under 20% of the total. There are two elements to the energy performance of buildings: energy is used in the running of the building, primarily heating and lighting, [...]
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