Energy Policy
To provide some light relief from the pervasive discussions of the novel coronavirus, I thought it might be nice to look at an interesting aspect of the Brexit negotiations. Brexit sentiment has swung significantly if perhaps not yet decisively towards a “no-deal” Brexit, and [...]
The Government has finally agreed to extend the deadline for smart meter installation, pushing it back to 2024 under a new supplier obligation that will come into effect from 1 January 2021 when the current obligation ends. At the same time, the latest cost [...]
Ofgem is in the process of reforming the way in which users pay for access to and use of electricity networks, which I have described in previous posts here and here. The Targeted Charging Review is the more advanced project and is tackling reform [...]
While energy news has been dominated by talk of last week’s blackout, there have been some important developments in the retail space which are worth highlighting, and which underline the need for a new direction in retail energy regulation. Earlier this month Ofgem announced [...]
Last week I spoke about how to manage the transition to a low carbon gas network at the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum. Much of the conference covered the different available approaches to de-carbonising the gas network, in particular conversion to hydrogen and [...]
Last Thursday, the UK’s Labour Party published a plan for re-nationalising Britain’s energy networks, buying them back from private investors at below-market prices. £1 billion was wiped off the value of the National Grid overnight in response to the news. Labour claims the move is [...]
Everyone has been getting very excited today with the news that GB has gone a whole week without using coal to generate electricity...the first time this has happened since we first started using coal in the late 19th century, and just 2 years since [...]
Ofgem has launched a consultation into proposed changes to the Capacity Market (“CM”) rules, which aim to simplify the market and reduce complexity which Ofgem feels may be acting as a barrier to entry and inhibiting competition. There are also proposals to improve the [...]
The need for reform of the retail energy market is increasingly clear – the past week has seen the failure of another new entrant supplier, bringing the total number of failures in since the beginning of 2018 to 17*. At the same time, suppliers [...]
Third party intermediaries or energy brokers are an important source of information for companies in their energy procurement and an important sales channel for suppliers; however the market is un-regulated, lacks transparency, and may be deterring customers at a time when rising prices mean [...]