Data centres get Climate Change Agreement

adminBusiness Electricity, Energy Efficiency, International, Utilities Market Regulation

It is the first industry that does not manufacture physical products to get a CCA, meaning exemption from the Climate Change Levy. Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) allow the 50 most energy intensive industries in the UK partial exemption from the Climate Change Levy, in return for meeting energy saving targets. Currently there are around 50 industries that have CCAs in … Read More

British Gas and Npower announce price rises

adminBusiness Electricity, Business Gas, International, Utilities Market Regulation, Wholesale Utilities Markets

Three of the Big Six have now announced winter price increases of between 8 and 11 per cent. Npower and British Gas have joined SSE and Co-op on the list of energy companies that have already announced price hikes this winter. Both suppliers blamed the hikes on higher prices on the global energy markets, higher costs of transmission, and increases … Read More

Has the oil market been rigged to raise prices?

adminBusiness Electricity, Business Gas, International, Utilities Market Regulation, Wholesale Utilities Markets

BP, Shell & Statoil suspected of deliberately manipulating markets and exacerbating the recession. Three energy giants may have “colluded in reporting distorted prices to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products”. If these allegations are true, it could have had an impact on not just petrol. Everything is linked to the price of oil somehow … Read More

Japan extracts ‘frozen gas’ from seabed

adminBusiness Gas, International

The island nation has become the first country to extract natural gas from methane hydrates frozen underneath the sea. New technology could lead to the gas being commercially extracted in the coming years – as the technology improves and it costs less to extract. Although frozen gas is currently very expensive compared to other methods of extraction, it might be … Read More

A 2013 UK Shale Gas Revolution? Unlikely.

adminBusiness Electricity, Business Gas, Energy Efficiency, International, Utilities Market Regulation, Wholesale Utilities Markets

Natural gas prices in the US have dropped by almost two thirds since they started ‘fracking’ for shale gas. Could we see a similar boost to the UK economy any time soon? Shale Gas – probably the only hope we have of producing a significant amount of useful, home-grown energy in the next decade or two. Some say it is … Read More

Ofgem report warns of blackouts by 2015

adminBusiness Electricity, Business Gas, Energy Efficiency, International, Utilities Market Regulation, Wholesale Utilities Markets

A lack of excess electricity generation has led the energy regulator to admit there could be shortfalls in supply in the near future. A report recently published by Ofgem predicts that the UK’s spare generation capacity will drop from its currently level of 14% to 4% by 2015. Under special terms in business electricity contracts, it would be companies that … Read More