Yesterday, Spectator editor Andrew Neil Tweeted his disappointment in the UK’s solar power performance after it was announced that a coal-fired power plant was put on standby to provide more electricity. One reason for the use of coal was that “Last Thursday the North Sea Link interconnector (between Britain and Norway) tripped losing 1.4GW
Octopus Energy has called on the National Grid ESO to stop burning coal and instead use consumer energy consumption flexibility to reduce demands on the energy grid. The company implemented its ‘Saving Sessions’ – enabled by the National Grid ESO’s Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) in October 2022. The scheme offered financial incentives for consumers to reduce electricity demand over peak
Move welcomed as a way to get more renewable energy sites connected to grid National Grid ESO is introducing further targeted reforms to speed up connections to the electricity network. The ESO has written to parties seeking to connect to the transmission system to ask for updates on progress and project milestones, so that
The UK Government is consulting on whether VAT on batteries installed for solar panels should be zero-rated for homes and small businesses, following a long campaign by MPs. MPs on the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) wrote to the Government earlier this month, warning that the UK would likely not meet its target to host
The Digital, Autonomous and Robotics Engineering (DARE) Centre at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s testing facility in Blyth, UK, has officially been opened. The £3 million ($1.2 million) DARE Centre, is a first-of-its-kind and will provide an opportunity for developers, researchers and the wider industry to test, demonstrate and commercialise innovative digital and robotic
The Office for National Statistics’ latest Climate Change insights data has revealed that 2023 has been a “warmer than average” year as consumption-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fall by only 2% from 2018. According to the paper, UK provisional mean temperatures for January and February 2023 were 1.7 degrees Celsius above the 2020 average. As
In 1883, Cragside, the dramatic castle-like home of British industrial magnate William Armstrong, would have looked every inch the cradle of revolution. Known as “the palace of a modern magician,” Cragside drew a long list of visiting kings and prime ministers eager to see the first home ever to be powered by domestically-generated electricity. In
After centuries of dominance, fossil fuels are set to lose their spot at the top of the energy podium. According to Jeremy Oppenheim, Partner at systems change company Systemiq, “We are hitting peak oil. Over the next 20 to 30 years there will be a rewiring of the economy on
An increase in strategic, self-generating renewable energy ‘prosumers’ in the energy market has the potential to lead to ‘death spirals’ for utilities, according to research from the Tokyo University of Science. Using mathematical modelling of markets, the research found that strategic prosumers – those consumers with rooftop solar, for example, who tailor their energy consumption
Arrays installed by more than 50,700 households in first quarter of 2023 as people seek to reduce energy bills The number of households installing rooftop solar panels reached its highest level in more than seven years in the first months of 2023 as energy-bill payers turned to renewable energy to guard against spiralling costs.