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The subsidy for solar power is to be cut in half for new installations from 12 December of this year, the government has said. Solar panel makers and installers say the cut will cost thousands of jobs. It also means consumers who register for the scheme after that date - even if they have already paid a deposit - will see their return halved. The government has launched a fast-track consultation on the change, but says it reflects falling panel prices. The new tariff of 21 pence, down from the current 43p, will...
Everyone wants cheap energy. The UK's North Sea oil and gas reserves, exploited systematically since the 1980s, helped give us a long run of low energy costs – and we built our consumption patterns on this bonanza of cheap supply. But since 2004, energy imports and prices have risen sharply. Household bills have doubled in tandem with the doubling of the cost of imported gas, which now makes up nearly 40% of our demand. As Sam Laidlaw, the chief executive of British Gas, said: "The price we pay for our gas is...
A married couple say they are facing financial ruin after they were landed with a £73,000 electricity bill in error - and were ordered to pay it. Despite their electricity supplier admitting to the mistake, Sean and Catherine Coleman have been told an astronomical underpayment must be met after they were undercharged for five years. The couple, who run a bar in Leeds, were unknowingly undercharged by a British Gas consumption meter for five years - an error to which the company has admitted. Read more: http...
The energy regulator Ofgem has fined Npower £2m for failing to handle complaints properly. Ofgem said Npower had not recorded complaints properly or given dissatisfied complainers details of the Energy Ombudsman's redress service. It added that Npower had now remedied all of the breaches of the regulations for which it was fined. A spokesman for NPower said: "We are very sorry, we let our high standards slip on this occasion." "A small number of processes were not correctly adhered to. We have zero tolerance...
Plans to supplement Britain's electricity needs by burning large quantities of wood are inefficient and put rural jobs at risk, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing will tell UK ministers. Mr Ewing is to meet the UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry and host a meeting with bioenergy stakeholders. He will urge Mr Hendry to follow the Scottish Government's lead and abandon subsidy for large-scale woody biomass in plants which produce electricity only. http://iclanarkshire.icnetwork.co.uk/news/scotland/headlines//tm_headline...
'1,000 New Jobs' Created By Energy Projects Tadhg Enright, business correspondentOne thousand construction jobs are to be created by two major infrastructure projects that will be given the green light by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Sky News has learned. Read on Sky News
Cuts to the feed-in-tarriff scheme, which rewards households for using renewable energy, will see the amount they earn fall from 43.3p per kilowatt hour of solar power to 21p. Returns will fall from about 7 per cent to 4 per cent, official papers published on the Energy Saving Trust (EST) website suggest, in a move that could make the technology affordable only to the wealthy. The move would almost double the length of time it would take for solar panels to become cost-effective, meaning it would take homeowners...
1) About 60% of UK householders say that they have never switched suppliers. 2) The number of switchers is tending to fall. 22% of electricity customers switched in 2006, falling to 17% last year. The gas numbers were similar. 3) Only 13% say that they have recently checked prices. 4) Ofgem research suggests that ‘5-10%’ of householders ‘proactively’ search for better prices. Up to 90% of people were shown by their consumer research to be ‘disengaged’ or ‘passive’. 5) The last check by Ofgem...
Britain's energy ministry said it will on Monday launch a review of state subsidies for solar power installations, the second change to the scheme since it started in April 2010. Energy Minister Greg Barker is scheduled to publish details of a consultation into altering the so-called feed-in tariffs (FITs) in Parliament at around 10 a.m. on Monday. "We'll be publishing a full consultation on changes to the solar PV (photovoltaic) tariff changes in Parliament on Monday," a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy...
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