UK energy supplier first utility has today announced a partnership with Google that will see the company integrate its smart meter service with the search giant’s recently launched online PowerMeter tool.

First:utility, which operates as an independent provider of gas and electricity to business and domestic customers, is currently in the process of rolling out free smart meters to all its customers and already operates a service where users can track their energy use online with energy use data updated every half hour.

However, company chief executive Mark Daeche told BusinessGreen.com that the new partnership with Google would make it easier still for users to monitor their energy use by providing data through their iGoogle desktop display.

“By integrating the data from our smart meters with the PowerMeter application we will be able to make sure the information is right there in your face each day,” he said, adding that surveys have shown that the more visible smart meter data is the more likely it is to help drive energy savings of up to 15 per cent.

Daeche said that due to privacy concerns customers would have to sign up to the new services to authorise first:utility to transfer their data to Google. But he predicted that the majority of the company’s smart meter customers would be interested in the new service. “It’s free of charge and we will email all customers in the middle of next month to notify them of new service,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you sign up?”

First:utility is the first UK firm to partner with Google’s PowerMeter project after a series of US utilities and smart meter firms signed up to integrate the technology into their own smart grid plans earlier this year.

Small business and households will be given more information and opportunity to switch power and gas suppliers, energy regulator Ofgem said on Monday. New regulations will include tougher rules on doorstep and telephone selling, and suppliers will have to provide clearer information on energy bills, in addition to an annual statement to help customers compare tariffs.

The threshold debt will also be doubled on pre-payment meters, to allow low-income consumer to switch suppliers at 200 pounds debt instead of 100 pounds.

Utilities’ treatment of customers will be judged on a new Ofgem standard of conduct, and the energy companies will have to publish revenue, cost, and profit from the production and supply of electricity and gas.

“As each measure comes into play, consumers including low-income households and small businesses will be armed with better information and protection,” Ofgem senior partner, Andrew Wright, said.

“That will give them more muscle in the market to put a greater competitive squeeze on the suppliers.”

Some measures, such as changes to rules for selling to customers face-to-face, will coming into force as early as Wednesday, while other changes coming into effect throughout 2010.

For small and medium sized companies, Ofgem intends to ban rolling energy contracts, meaning suppliers will have to inform businesses before renewing energy supply deals.

The new regulations are aimed at remedying flaws found it Ofgem’s recent Energy Supply Probe, which found that customers were missing out the cost benefits of changing utilities.

A great European war is about to begin. This is a war for natural gas, a struggle for control of the market in this vital fuel.

It is not, though, a fight over market share but something more fundamental: it is about control over the pricing mechanism, the way in which gas is bought and sold in Europe. It is an ideological conflict between promoters of free markets and others who support the stability of a managed price. It is also about the potential profits and losses at stake in £19 billion worth of unwanted gas.

The wholesale gas price has collapsed worldwide. It has been beaten down by recession and at the same time undermined by new discoveries in America and new supplies of sea-borne liquefied natural gas from the Gulf.

Households don’t see this in their bills but industrial buyers of gas have watched the spot or “day ahead” price fall from 70p per therm to about 20p over the past 12 months. One of the reasons your bill isn’t falling is that most of your gas was bought by a utility, not on the spot market but under a long-term contract with a big energy group.

It is these contracts, some as long as 30 years, that are now the subject of a tug-of-war between the world’s biggest companies. Europe’s gas buyers are not just demanding lower prices, they are looking to rewrite deals. They want to link long-term prices more closely to spot markets and they want the big gas suppliers in Siberia, the North Sea and North Africa to take more price risk.

The conflict erupted last week at the World Gas Conference when Alexey Miller, the chairman of Gazprom, flatly denied that his company would renegotiate prices or volumes. At the same time Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of E.ON, Gazprom’s biggest customer, said he was in talks over the deferral of unwanted volumes of gas.

In one corner, stubbornly, sit the suppliers — troubled giants such as Gazprom of Russia, Sonatrach of Algeria and StatoilHydro of Norway. These mainly sell gas through long-distance pipelines under “take-or-pay contracts”. These deals, sometimes linked to the entire output of a big gasfield, require purchasers to take specified annual volumes of gas. If they don’t take all the gas, they must pay for it anyway and the volume declined can be supplied later when demand for the fuel increases. The take-or-pay price is almost always linked to an index, made up typically of a basket of alternative fuels related to crude oil.

Take-or-pay was invented to provide stability in a simple world made up of single buyers and monopoly sellers — Russia selling gas to Germany or the old British Gas buying from Shell. Gas trading did not exist because there was no organised market. Shell needed the certainty of a guaranteed customer to justify the cost of drilling wells and building pipelines. British Gas wanted a reliable supplier and both sides wanted a certain price.

In the other corner, fuming, sit today’s buyers — companies such as Britain’s Centrica, E.ON of Germany, Italy’s ENI and GDF-Suez of France. They see the price of spot gas plummeting in liquid markets such as the NBP in Britain, at Zeebrugge in Belgium and America’s Henry Hub, but they have already bought gas from Russia at a gas price linked to oil, which remains stubbornly high.

Put in simple terms, today’s UK spot gas price of 26p per therm translates into an oil price of about $24 per barrel, compared with today’s crude price of about $75 per barrel.

According to Louise Boddy, of Icis Heren, the gas price consultants, the oversupply of take-or-pay gas is so large that utilities are dumping gas they cannot sell into the spot market and into storage. “Utilities are praying for a cold winter,” she said. “Otherwise they will have to sell gas at a loss or take contractual penalties.”

The problem will continue, says Simon Blakey, a gas expert at IHS-Cera, the energy consultants.

He reckons demand will remain below minimum contracted volumes into 2011. That means Europe could be working through its gas glut well into 2014-15.

Italy is squabbling with Russia over some $2 billion worth of contracted gas for which it has no customer, and if the glut, as expected, lasts three years, the whole of Europe is arguing about liability for a gas bubble worth $25-$35 billion at current prices. For Gazprom, it is a growing nightmare, compounded by the group’s enormous financial commitments to build pipelines in the Baltic and giant gasfields in the Yamal Peninsula and in the Barents Sea.

Money talks and Gazprom cannot ignore the convoys of ships from the Gulf, Egypt and Nigeria, dumping liquefied gas into tanks at Zeebrugge, the Isle of Grain and Milford Haven at prices that are half the cost of Russian take-or-pay gas.

For the Kremlin, it will be hard to accept that its biggest export earner, the nation’s No 1 taxpayer, should be subject to the daily whims of traders watching screens in London. Gazprom will put up a huge fight to prevent any linkage to spot markets and many outside Russia will wonder whether gas, the fuel that underpins Europe’s energy future, should become a trader’s plaything.

Many years ago in Britain, a great company almost collapsed when a new, liberalised market undermined the value of gas bought under old take-or-pay contracts. The company’s name was British Gas.

British gas prices rose early on Monday due to forecasts for colder weather next week, while power prices climbed on tighter supply margins due to outages. Gas for Tuesday was 24.50 pence per therm by 0915 GMT, up 1.50 pence from day ahead contracts late on Friday.

Working days next week showed the largest rise, of 3.20 pence to 26 pence. “People are looking at the forecast next week. It looks a little bit colder. Demand is expected to pick up next week,” said a trader.

Gas for November added 1.45 pence to 34.30 pence, while December rose 1.10 pence to 39.00 pence. The price rises came despite the system being long early on Monday, with ample supply from Norway via the Langeled pipeline and LNG terminals, including Isle of Grains and Milford Haven.

Flows through the BBL pipeline between Britain and the Netherlands fell to zero early on Monday. A spokesman for the pipeline company said there was no technical issue and the low flows were due only to an absence of interest from shippers. Port authority data showed on Monday that the Al Gharrafa liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker was scheduled to berth at Britain’s South Hook terminal on Oct. 16. 

CarbonSquash is committed to helping individuals make a positive impact on the issue of global climate change and carbon emissions.

Our aims are:

• To provide information and tips that will help you reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions on a day to day basis – and save you money.
• To guide you through the process of offsetting unavoidable personal carbon emissions – making it easy for you to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases around the world.
• To provide a simple fund raising tool that enables you to contribute to carbon reduction projects – at no cost to you.
• To enable you to calculate your carbon emissions and purchase carbon credits as and when you choose.

CarbonSquash offers a carbon offsetting solution to suit everyone – from a ‘no cost’ Internet search box that raises funding for carbon reduction projects as you search the web, through to the calculation of personal carbon emissions and the purchase of carbon credits.

With CarbonSquash you can create your very own personal ‘carbon offset policy’ to suit your circumstances – using no cost web searching, emission calculation and credit purchase; or a combination of both.

CarbonSquash is part of Whitedotbox Holdings Ltd, a private limited company which enables individuals and companies to raise charitable and carbon reduction funding through Internet search activity.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment will now be known as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC). The new words have been added to better reflect the primary objective of the scheme which is the achievement of carbon emission reductions through increased energy efficiency.

The most important changes to the CRC policy as a result of the consultation include:

Cash flow – The first sale of allowances in April 2011 will now only require participants to purchase allowances for the year ahead and no longer for the previous year as well. This comes after stakeholder concern regarding the impact of a double sale on their cash flow. As a result, the first year of the Introductory Phase will therefore become a monitoring period.

Principal Subsidiaries - Large subsidiaries that would qualify in their own right can now choose whether to disaggregate themselves from their organisational group and participate independently. To reflect these changes, Principal Subsidiaries are now referred to as Significant Group Undertakings.

Early Action Metric - Organisations which have demonstrated commitment to reducing their emissions either by achieving the Carbon Trust Standard, or accreditation from an equivalent scheme can use this to be counted towards the Early Action metric. The relative weighting of this metric in the overall performance score, compared to the Absolute reduction and Growth metrics, will be reduced more gradually to better recognise early action taken, from 100% in the first year, 40% in the second year and 20% in the third year.

Treatment of renewables – The CRC will treat electricity which receives a Feed In Tariff in the same way as electricity which is issued a Renewable Obligation Certificate, and has simplified the approach to reporting and accounting for renewably generated electricity. As an energy efficiency mechanism, CRC will not provide additional incentives for renewable generation. We will, however, publish alongside the performance league table, the organisations increase in onsite renewable generation together with energy efficiency savings. This will allow organisations to gain reputational credit for their investment in onsite renewables.

Public Sector Organisations - The definition of a public sector organisation has been simplified to create better clarity for participants in the CRC. Organisations designated as a „public authority‟ in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) 2002 will participate in CRC on the basis of their individual FOI/FOI (S) listing, unless they are legally part of another body, in which case they would participate as part of that parent body.

CRC qualification pack mailing exercise

Qualification and registration guidance for potential CRC participants (“Qualification Pack”) will be published at the end of October. This set of guidance includes the following documents:

• Am I in?
• A guide for qualification and organisation structure
• Register as a CRC Participant; and
• Making an Information Disclosure

These guidance documents will be available on regulators‟ websites. For ease, the Environment Agency website is at: www.environment-agency.gov.uk/crc

The Environment Agency is the Administrator for the CRC throughout the UK, and will also be the scheme regulator in England and Wales. The Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency are the other regulators.

When the guidance is published, the Environment Agency will write to all potential participant organisation addresses with information on how to access the guidance. It will not mail the guidance itself to avoid organisations receiving parts of the guidance which may not be relevant to them, and to reduce paper waste.

The CRC regulators decided to release this guidance after the Government issued its response to the consultation so that organisations receive complete and accurate information that would not be subject to change. In the interim, to help organisations prepare for the CRC, a number of CRC Brief Guidance documents have been created. These include:

1. Early Action Metric
2. Automatic Meter Reading
3. Making an Information Disclosure

You can find these documents at www.environment-agency.gov.uk/crc. In May this year, a letter was sent to all Half Hourly Meter billing addresses introducing the CRC scheme and its obligations. The Environment Agency has now amended its database, and where possible, grouped together billing addresses that fall under the same company name. This should help to prevent organisations receiving duplicate letters.

British consumers could soon be lighting their homes and watching television powered by hydroelectricity generated in the fjords of Norway, under plans announced yesterday by National Grid.

The operator of the UK’s network of high-voltage wires said that it was in talks with Statnett, the Norwegian energy company, about laying a £1 billion cable beneath the North Sea to connect the countries. At more than 560 miles (900km), the high-voltage link from Kvilldal, Norway, to an unspecified point on English coast would be the longest of its kind in the world. It would have a capacity of about 1,000 megawatts, about the output of the Dungeness nuclear power station, according to a National Grid official. The companies have carried out a feasibility study and are selecting an optimal route.

As well as enabling Britain to import electricity from hydroelectric plants in Norway, the link would open the possibility of allowing the UK to export electricity generated from offshore wind farms in the North Sea to Norway. The Government hopes that the project will form the backbone of a “European supergrid”, linking different sources of renewable energy across the Continent.

Britain is committed to a vast expansion of onshore and offshore wind farms as part of its drive to generate about 30 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020, up from 6 per cent. But if it succeeds, Britain will face big problems managing the inherent volatility of wind energy, when compared with the reliable output of conventional power stations.

Duncan Sinclair, director of Redpoint Energy, a consultancy that advises the Government, said: “More interconnectors like this are a good thing because, for a major electricity market, the UK is poorly linked in with other European countries. Being able to import electricity from Norway and other countries will play an important role in balancing the grid.”  The cable would be owned 50-50 by National Grid and Statnett.

It can be easy being green – A ‘must attend’ Free seminar

05 November 2009 11:00 – 05 November 2009 14:00 GMT, London

Microsoft Head Office – Thames Valley Park, Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 1WG, United Kingdom.

In order to reduce human impact on the environment governments have been forced to introduce both financial measures and legislation in order to change behavior. Qubic and PC Power Down can show organisation how they can comply with these measures whilst not incurring unnecessary financial penalties. 

• Understand the Legislation
• Understand your Energy Usage Profile
• Reduce the Cost of Compliance
• Reduce Energy Costs
• Reduce your Environmental Impact
• What is your Corporate Responsibility?
• Improve your Environmental Image
• Avoid Prosecution and Fines

Morning Sessions

            10.30  Registration and Coffee

            11.00  Introduction – David Watson

An overview of the scope of the event and an introduction to Qubic’s approach to Environmental Issues

11.05  PC Power Down – Gary Shepherd

          How PC Power Down in conjunction with Microsoft can automate, regulate and manage organisation’s power consumption ensuring reduction in both costs and carbon emissions.

     11.25   Microsoft –

Microsoft will share their experiences in deploying a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policy and the needs, requirement and benefits this brings to an organisation. They will also show how they have modified their policies to address the up and coming UK government legislation.

     11.45   DEFRA –

The UK government have introduced into to law the CRC (Carbon Reduction Commitment) programme. DEFRA will provide an overview of the scheme stating who is affected and what the 4 key actions of the scheme are. What are the timelines and the legal requirements?

    12.05   Coffee Break

           12.15 Catalyst Commercial Services – 

Many organisations understand how much they are spending on energy but not their energy usage profile or how this relates to their energy contract or the current legislation. Catalyst will show how to solve these issues.

    12.35   Office Electrics – Paul Wright-Hobson

There are standards and regulations to follow when incorporating electricity into office and educational furniture such as BS 6396. Office Electrics in conjunction with PC Power Down’s technology ensure world wide compliance as well as the ability to reduce your organisations impact on the environment.

    12.55   Summary – David Watson

Suggested Action Plan and how Qubic can help to address these important issues.

Afternoon Session 5^th November

            13.00 Registration and Lunch

            14.00  Introduction – David Watson

An overview of the scope of the event and an introduction to Qubic’s approach to Environmental Issues

14.05  PC Power Down – Gary Shepherd

          How PC Power Down in conjunction with Microsoft can automate, regulate and manage organisation’s power consumption ensuring reduction in both costs and carbon emissions.

14.25   Microsoft –

Microsoft will share their experiences in deploying a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policy and the needs, requirement and benefits this brings to an organisation. They will also show how they have modified their policies to address the up and coming UK government legislation.

14.45   DEFRA –

The UK government have introduced into to law the CRC (Carbon Reduction Commitment) programme. DEFRA will provide an overview of the scheme stating who is affected and what the 4 key actions of the scheme are. What are the timelines and the legal requirements?

15.05   Coffee Break

            15.15 Catalyst Commercial Services –

Many organisations understand how much they are spending on energy but not their energy usage profile or how this relates to their energy contract or the current legislation. Catalyst will show how to solve these issues.

15.35   Office Electrics – Paul Wright-Hobson

There are standards and regulations to follow when incorporating electricity into office and educational furniture such as BS 6396. Office Electrics in conjunction with PC Power Down’s technology ensure world wide compliance as well as the ability to reduce your organisations impact on the environment.

15.55   Summary – David Watson

Suggested Action Plan and how Qubic can help to address these important issues.

Business Gas storage capacity will only grow by tiny fraction, minister admits despite expected record imports, only five hours’ worth of gas capacity will be built in UK in next two years, says Lord Hunt.  Just five hours worth of gas storage capacity will be built in the UK over the next two years, even though gas imports this winter are forecast to reach record levels. 

The energy minister Lord Hunt admitted in a parliamentary answer last week that only a tiny fraction of capacity will be added to the 16 days’ worth of average supply now available.

The new storage, which will come into operation by the end of the year at the Aldburgh site in Yorkshire, amounts to just 0.06bn cubic metres, or just over five hours’ worth, compared to the 4.34bn cubic metres already in existence. No additional capacity beyond this is forecast to come on stream until April 2011 at the earliest.

The admission comes days after National Grid released its annual Winter Outlook on Britain’s energy supplies, which revealed that half of the gas consumed by homes and businesses will come from overseas this year. It said that gas production from the North Sea would be 6% lower this year as the rate of decline increases. The UK imports gas by pipeline from mainland Europe, Russia and Norway, as well as shipping in liquefied natural gas by tanker from the likes of Algeria and Trinidad & Tobago.

Other countries in Europe have much bigger storage facilities. Germany has enough to meet 73 days of consumption, and France has 91 days worth. The UK has traditionally relied on the North Sea as its own indigenous source, but its production has been declining for years. Companies like Portland Gas and Canatxx wanting to build storage facilities complain that the UK’s cumbersome planning process has slowed development.

Jeremy Nicholson from the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents heavy industry, said the amount of capacity being added was “wholly inadequate”. “It falls significantly short of the step change we will need in the level of gas storage if we are to have secure energy supplies,” he added. Hunt said in the House of Commons last week that the number of days’ gas storage capacity “is not by itself a meaningful indicator whether demand can be met”. He went on: “Unlike most other EU member states we have access to major indigenous supplies, while we also have substantial capacity to import gas from diverse sources.”

But the UK has repeatedly found itself exposed by the regular rows between Russia and the Ukraine over gas supplies. In January, wholesale gas prices in the UK shot up by a quarter in three days after the Interconnector – the pipeline linking the UK and Europe – switched from importing to exporting gas to replenish European countries’ dwindling supplies. Energy experts fully expect another stand-off between Ukraine and Russia this winter.

Energy companies also have no obligation to use or invest in storage facilities, which some storage firms want reversed.

There are six projects which have received planning permission – some over two years ago – which if built would double the UK’s existing capacity, but the developers have not yet decided to make the investment.

Canatxx Gas Storage chief executive Paul Grimes said that more storage was needed to make sure new liquified natural gas terminals and pipelines to import the fuel to the UK get built. “These two issues are intrinsically linked, because without sufficient storage and the right infrastructure the gas simply won’t come – it will go elsewhere –no matter what price we are prepared to pay,” he said.

Firms not ready for CRC, says research and rising energy costs will come as a shock to many, according to RSA study. 

Although new climate legislation means the energy costs of more than 5,000 large UK organisations will rise by at least £55,000 next year, only about a third have started making preparations to cope with the change.

To make matters worse, according to a survey undertaken by commercial insurance and energy management company RSA, less than half of businesses are aware of the existence of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), while three-quarters are unsure when comes into force.

Alex Matthias, energy management leader at RSA, said: “CRC will be an important issue for many years to come and it is vital that organisations take advantage of the potential financial benefits by acting now rather than leaving it to the last minute and risking their company’s reputation and bottom line.”

The CRC will require both private and public sector organisations that consume more than 6,000MWh of electricity per half hour to purchase allowances for every ton of carbon dioxide that they emit.

The allowances are estimated to amount to about six per cent of each enterprise’s current energy expenditure, but administration costs are also expected to account for an additional five per cent.

This means that, if an organisation’s annual energy bill is £500,000, it will have to spend a further £30,000 on purchasing the allowances and another £25,000 on achieving compliance.

A public league table will be set up to rank individual enterprise performance based on energy use and organisations will be either rewarded or penalised based on their chart position.

However, just under 60 per cent of those surveyed have yet to start making preparations.

A business can choose its NHH data collector and data services provider.  With the introduction of the new NHH metering standard, Code of Practice 10, and the industry wide endorsement of interoperability, any accredited data collector now has the potential to ‘talk’ to any CoP10-approved NHH meter in the Profile Classes 5-8 market.

The benefit to you is that, even if your energy supplier installed your smart meters, you now have free choice over who collects your meter data, and who provides your data services. Just like in the HH market, you are no longer tied to obtaining these services from your energy supplier. So, if you are looking for improved NHH services and innovative data products, you can now nominate your preferred providers.

With the introduction of market interoperability, Western Power Distribution (WPD) has launched an attractive rental scheme for NHH smart metering which has three key benefits.

1. No contract: simply write to your energy supplier asking them to appoint WPD as your meter asset provider/operator.

2. No additional invoices: the meter rental cost will be included in your energy supplier’s bill.

3. No termination charges: there are no termination charges to pay should you decide to cancel, or vacate a premises.

To find out more about smart meter rental click here, or call us on 0870 710 7560 to discuss your requirments.