RWE Npower, Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power and EDF Energy are all to be put under the microscope of energy industry regulator Ofgem.

The probe will determine whether these four companies are complying with obligations that were brought in by Ofgem last October regarding the mis-selling of energy products to customers.

Ofgem is concerned that the sales and rewards structure within energy suppliers encourages staff to mis-sell energy via misleading information about quotes or a customers’ supply.

This can often lead to a customer being worse off after switching suppliers.

Ofgem have previously fined Npower £1.8 million in 2008, and London Electric (now a part of EDF Energy) £2 million.

Utilities Savings strongly recommends using a broker for your energy procurement to avoid any complications and have support should you need it.

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The deadline to register for the government’s new CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is approaching fast, but over 3,000 of the largest UK businesses have still not yet registered, and could face fines of up to £45,000.

As detailed on our CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme page, the deadline to register for the CRC Scheme is September 30th. All businesses with at least one half-hourly electricity meter must participate in the scheme, and those spending £500,000 per annum on electricity must become ‘full participants’. Those businesses will not only be required to disclose information on their energy usage, but also purchase carbon allowances from the government equal to their carbon emissions.

It is estimated that up to 5,000 companies must register as full participants, but so far only 1,200 have registered. The remaining businesses must act fast or will face an instant £5,000 fine when the end of September comes, and £500 for each day that passes after that. The fines are capped at £45,000.

For these largest users, the CRC Scheme will involve them competing in an energy effiency league table against each other, with rewards and penalties being handed out based on their position.

For any half-hourly metered businesses using under 6,000 megawatt hours, registration is still mandatory, and can take several weeks to complete. Businesses are advised to take action now as even the smallest companies could be fined £500 if they are not registered in time.

Utilities Savings are offering registration from the extremely competitive rate of only £200 per half-hourly meter. Go to our CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme page to find out more about your obligations.

The staggering sums have accumulated in scarcely three months since the disaster. BP attribute the majority of the sum to their initial spill response, namely the 31,000 people deployed in the numerous containment attempts.

The gushing oil well was finally stopped on the 15th July 2010. The now plugged Macondo well in the Mississippi Canyon, is the first drilling relief well expected to start intercepting oil within the next week.

The amounting costs do not end there for BP. The global energy giant have received a whopping 145,000 claims for compensation by companies and individuals affected by the spill. The compensation costs amount to a total of almost £205 million, to satisfy 103,900 of these claims.

An estimated 4.9 million barrels of the finite resource, oil has been lost since the disaster occurred and was stopped on the 15th of last month. So far the clean up operations have skimmed 826,000 barrels of oily liquid.

Clearly the clean up of this environmental disaster is an ongoing operation. A large amount of oil remains under the seabed. BP are yet to comment on questions concerning the future of the oilfield, once the wells have been successfully maintained.

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Centrica have announced that British Gas made operating profits of £585 million for the first half of the year.

Centrica, parent company of British Gas also released their profit increase of 65% to £1.56 billion

Being Britain’s largest domestic energy supplier, supplying power to half of UK households British Gas benefited from the cold winter with gas use rising by 8%.

The company also gained over 220,000 new customers when they cut their prices in February 2010.

Is 98% too much?

British Gas claim they have passed on their profits to customers through cutting their energy prices three times over the last year, but with profit numbers like 98% it is understandable many customer groups are suggesting that energy prices can and should be cut even further.

Despite this, British Gas have announced that customers can expect to see energy bills rise in future.

Centrica also stated that their customers are being more energy efficient than before, but this increased efficiency was offset by last year’s cold winter.

Do you think that a 98% rise in profits is too much for an energy supplier? Do you think that these profits are sufficiently being passed on to customers? Are you surprised that Centrica have announced massive profits and projected future price rises on the same day?

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The UK Government have set a target of rolling out smart meters – energy meters which will enable suppliers to take meter readings via a wireless network – to every home in the UK by 2020.

Traditional meters like this one are being replaced

This is a plan that is estimated to cost over £7 billion, with almost 50 million smart meters being installed over the next decade in 28 million homes and small businesses.

IT and communications giant British Telecom have launched a bid to partner this project in conjunction with 2 other companies, Arqiva and Detica.

These three companies are hoping to provide the telecommunications that will link every smart meter together, via Arqiva’s radio network, which currently deals with TV and radio signals. Detica will then provide the security for the network and BT will manage the operation.

Are BT the right people for the job?

As you would expect from a bid estimated at over £7 billion, there is major competition to BT’s bid, namely from mobile companies Orange and Vodafone.

Energy suppliers are the ones responsible for the supply and installation of the smart meters, and there are already partnerships in place between Orange & Vodafone and some leading energy companies.

Vodafone is currently working with British Gas in installing two million smart meters by 2012, while Orange have teamed up with nPower and Scottish and Southern Energy.

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The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has said that the economic downturn is responsible for the 8.6% drop in CO2 emissions experienced last year.

Major changes have been called for by The Committee on Climate Change in an annual review presented to the government.

The CCC’s annual report follows a year which has seen an 8.6% drop in carbon emissions, the highest annual reduction in carbon emissions experienced by the UK since 1990, mainly due to recession but also rising fossil fuel prices.

Areas Of Change

The CCC have identified 4 main areas it says the government needs to invest and control if the UK is to achieve its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent on 1990 levels by 2020.

These 4 areas are: Electricity generation, agriculture, home insulation and electric cars.

The CCC advises the government there should be more incentives for electricity generators to use low carbon alternative technologies such as “clean” coal and gas plants, as well as pushing home insulation to the public.

Focus is also on cutting emissions in agriculture by encouraging farmers to be more efficient with fertilisers, perhaps by introducing a fertiliser tax, and providing funding opportunities for companies developing electric cars to speed up the process of their introduction and swiftly get more on the road.

The CCC has also suggested the possibility that the government could increase their reduction target from 34 to 40 percent, and call for the EU to increase their target from 20 to 30 percent.

What do you think about the reduction in emissions? Is it just due to the recession or are there other reasons? And should the Committee on Climate Change be advising the government to change their emission targets in this way?

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It’s almost two months since the widely reported disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Deepwater Horizon BP oil rig exploded and was sunk on April 20, killing 11 workers and leaving a hole in the ocean floor spewing around 5000 barrels of crude oil a day into the sea.

The threat to the marine life in the area is substantial and protecting the environment is the job of British Petroleum, who have confessed to being “Ultimately Responsible” for fixing the mess.

The clean up operations along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and also the effort to repair the leak was costing BP a reported £4m per day.

BP said on the 18th of May that they had managed to repair some of the leak, and said they were capturing 1,000 but still losing 4,000 barrels of oil per day into the ocean.

At the beginning of the month the BP effort to plug the spill failed. Causing the BP share price to drop 35% from before the rig exploded.

On the 5th of June BP said they had successfully attached a cap to the leak, but it was not long after this good news that the US Government had issued a statement that BP were fully responsible for not only the clean up operation, but also the economic stability of the surrounding area.

It is not the loss of oil that will have the lasting effect on BP, as shortly after they managed to stop the leak, it was released they had agreed with the US Government to put £20bn into a fund to pay for damages, which on top of a near 40% drop in share price means the future looks bleak for the company branded ‘reckless’ by President Barack Obama.

The first full economic valuation of the UK’s renewable energy sector has suggested that renewable energy could power the UK and create thousands of jobs.

The report even suggests that by 2050 the UK could be exporting electricity.

The study was carried out by the Offshore Valuation Group, and it says that even were the offshore renewable industry to work at just a third of its potential capacity, it could still see some 145,000 jobs created.

It also said that Britain could create enough clean electricity from renewable sources to meet current UK demand 6 times over. The potential export value of this excess energy is huge, and will only continue to rise in future.

Tidal energy is a somewhat new and untested field, with the first prototype tidal generators being manufactured and tested at the moment. Two of these are being tested in Scotland, where the European Marine Energy Centre is located amongst most of the UK’s best tidal sites.

Last month the Pelamis P2 wave generator was unveiled, and this month the Oyster 2 wave energy converter has been launched.

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The Pelamis P2 wave power device is 180m long and weights 750 tonnes. It can generate 750kW of electricity.

The device is a first step into marine energy for the UK, with this device being the first of its kind to be tested anywhere in the world. The device was manufactured in Scotland, and the Scottish are confident they can become a big player in the renewable energy market by embracing innovative new renewable technologies such as this.

The device is named ‘Vagr Atferd’ taken from the Norse for ‘Wave Power’, and it is now being moved to Orkney to be tested for 3 years, before it can be used commercially.

Orkney in Scotland is a good place for this marine technology to be tested, as the waters around Scotland contain most of the best tidal sites in the UK.

It remains to be seen how effective wave power can be with regard to reducing the UK’s carbon offset targets. It is hoped that this project will help to make tidal power, which is more expensive than the more conventional offshore wind approach a more cost effective and realistic option in the future.

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Hung Parliament & Nuclear Power

Following the televised debates, polls are indicating that the chances of one party gaining enough of a majority to be elected has significantly dropped.

This has led to concerns that the nuclear power plans put in place by the Labour government could be under threat should a hung parliament be elected, due to the Liberal Democrats’ anti nuclear stance.

It remains to be seen if the Liberal Democrats will have enough pulling power to alter the Conservatives’ and Labour’s pro-nuclear stance. Experts suggest that it is not an area where the Lib Dems would look to greatly assert themselves should they be elected in the minority, and will probably be overruled.

It is not surprising given that there are massive nuclear plans already under way, with a number of the biggest global energy companies already committed to the UK nuclear rejuvenation.

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