The UK's Largest Energy Blog - Catalyst-Commercial.co.uk » Renewable Energy

Inaccurate CRC Report Fines:

Felipe — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:15:51 +0000

Big Fine for Companies Who Provide Inaccurate CRC Reports

Time is running out for UK organisations whose half hourly electricity consumption totals more than 6,000 MWh per year (equivalent to approximately £500,000 annual spend) and are yet to compile all data for their CRC report.

Companies covered under this Energy Efficiency Scheme must provide a carbon emission report based on their annual energy consumption by the end of July, more precisely the 31st. Those who fail to meet the deadline will face severe financial penalties.

For instance, companies who hand in their CRC reports after the deadline will have to pay a fine of £5,000, plus £500 for each day that the report is overdue.

Inaccurate reports could cause serious damage to a business’s energy bill with increases of 5 to 10 percent. For each tonne either over or under-reported the fine is £40. For example, an organisation spending £20 million on energy could expect a fine of £1 million for a 20% error. Ouch!

A more realistic example would be, an organisation with an energy bill of half a million pounds, submitted 20 days late and with a 20% error, could face a fine of £55,433 (11% extra).

Recently the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCooper conducted a research and found that only 21% of the companies interviewed were monitoring and reporting their carbon emissions. Out of the 160 companies surveyed only 67% reported that they were CRC participants.

Henry Le Fleming, carbon reporting specialist at PwC, said, however, that many companies are unprepared for the process of collecting the data, having not “stress tested their processes, systems and controls”.

In fact, the Carbon Commitment Reduction Scheme is not a considered scheme anymore, it is a straight forward tax intended to promote energy efficiency by the country’s largest users of energy.

Companies who comply with the scheme providing accurate CRC reports will enjoy significant financial benefits in the long run, due to improved energy efficiency. If done accurately these companies could reduce energy expenditure of 10% every year.

Complete information about the CRC can be found at our Carbon Commitment Reduction page. For more details about PWC’s research visit their website at: http://www.pwc.co.uk

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Time To Turn Back on Nuclear:

Felipe — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:21:31 +0000

Should Britain Turn its Back on Nuclear?

The catastrophic events in Japan that led to Fukushima’s nuclear crisis made the world review their concepts about nuclear energy generation. What once was seen as an effective way to generate carbon free electricity is now being questioned about its safety that will sure comprise its economical viability.

What happened at Fukushima’s nuclear power plant caused deep wounds on the nuclear industry, forcing governments in every corner of the globe to review their nuclear development policies.

As countries around the globe start to decarbonise their economies, nuclear power is seen universally as a vital and cost effective carbon free energy generating resource. But new safety policies and other costs for new and existing nuclear power plants could turn nuclear power less economic or even uneconomic.

The nuclear industry has a strong safety record and there is no reason to believe that this cannot be maintained into the future but events in Japan have changed these parameters. Although we don’t have a detailed report of what happened at Fukushima nuclear power plant further improvements on the current high safety levels will sure be implemented and required by new nuclear power plants.

This leads us to the question: “Is it safe for Britain to go on building new nuclear plants?”

Writing to the telegraph Lord Hutton of Furness former secretary of state for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, 2007-8, answered this question with an emphatic “YES” stating:

“Safety must, of course, always be at the heart of the case for nuclear energy, and regulators must make this their top priority. In 2008, when I had responsibility for energy policy, the safety case was fundamental to my decision to sanction a new generation of nuclear power stations for Britain. I have every confidence that this will be the same approach taken by ministers today. Modern nuclear technologies have multi-layered safety systems in place that offer a huge improvement on the older power plants.”

With ageing power plants due to close in coming years, time is running out for Britain and nuclear power seems like the most probable solution to not only to keep the “lights on” but also to cut down carbon emissions.

If Britain turns its back on nuclear the Government would be limited to very few energy generating resources. Renewables would be one of them, for the delight of the energy secretary Chris Hune. The second option would be gas as it is unlikely that the Government would sanction a new coal-fired power plant.

Meanwhile one thing is for sure the nuclear crisis in Japan will result in rising business gas prices and consequently higher business energy prices as LNG cargoes are diverted to the Far East to fill the gap left by the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

To sum things up I leave you with the question: “Should Britain Turn its Back on Nuclear?” – Share your thoughts and opinions in our comments section.

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Japan’s Disaster Impacts on UK:

Felipe — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:17:42 +0000

Japan’s Disaster Impacts on the UK Energy Market

As uncertain to the future of the UK energy market, Japan’s disaster has caused even more uncertainties. Should the government stick with the nuclear energy programme? Or was what happened at Fukushima’s nuclear plant a warning that as efficient as nuclear might be, safety comes first?

Once again energy market specialists are divided into two groups. Those that believe Japan’s nuclear crisis will change global energy markets for good and those that despite knowing the risks of nuclear power plants still think the Government must not divert from its nuclear energy programme.

The events at Fukushima nuclear power station are likely to change national energy policies in nuclear countries and that includes the UK. China has already suspended new nuclear plant approvals and those that are under construction that do not conform to safety standards must immediately cease construction.

New safety policies and other costs for new and existing nuclear power plants could turn nuclear power less economic or even uneconomic. Nuclear’s loss could be natural gas and renewable’s gain. Although it is very early to say how this will affect the British power sector potential changes should not be downplayed.

Speculative analysis shows that gas could significantly be impacted by long-term policy changes which could lead to higher gas prices.

“With gas-fired power stations normally the marginal source of generation capacity in the UK, this is likely to result in higher electricity prices.” – stated an Energy Broker.

Unfortunately the UK relies on nuclear power stations to replace coal-fired stations that will be switched off over the next decade. Even those who once described nuclear energy as a “tried, tested and failed technology”, are now advocating that Britain needs a more balanced energy strategy, in which nuclear will be crucial.

On Sunday, Chris Hune, the energy secretary, ordered the chief nuclear officer to conduct an immediate review of the safety of Britain’s nuclear power stations.

Mr Hune who once was totally against nuclear power has recently turned into a supporter for new nuclear stations. Right now there are plans for five nuclear plants to be built in the UK over the next decade. Shifting to nuclear is crucial if Britain is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.

Despite agreeing that the UK will need to rely on nuclear to “keep the lights on”, Mr Hune still believes the UK can meet its climate change commitments without relying too much on nuclear.

“We can do the 80 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 without new nuclear, but it will require a big effort on carbon capture and storage and renewables.”

On the other hand, the Conservatives are likely to oppose any move to scale back the nuclear programme. The prime minister said that nuclear should be par of the mix.

I leave you with the questions asked in the beginning of this article – Should the government stick with the nuclear energy programme? Or was what happened at Fukushima’s nuclear plant a warning that as efficient as nuclear might be, safety comes first?

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Renewable Energy Ideas:

Felipe — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:00:04 +0000

Innovative Renewable Energy Generation Ideas

Portable Ethanol Refinery Turns Food Waste into Fuel – Every year in the UK alone thousands, maybe millions of tones of food goes to waste. What if we could find a use for all this waste? That is exactly what a California based company did, they’ve created a portable ethanol refinery that produces the fuel out of food waste.

Launched in 2009 the E-Fuel Microfueler replaces the traditional ethanol reflux column system with a solid state distillation technology, making it possible for homeowners and small businesses to safely and cost-effectively create their own fuel, on-site.

How it works

Compatible with just about any type of organic waste (discarded liquids rich in sugar, waste sugar, liquids with residual alcohol, cellulosic materials and even algae) that will be used as feedstock. The Microfueler uses a patented technology consisting of micro sensors and state-of-the-art semiconductor technology to produce ethanol in a combustion free process, making it possible for homeowners and small businesses to safely and cost-effectively create their own fuel, on-site.

About Ethanol

For those of you how don’t know what Ethanol is here is quick explanation. If you already know what Ethanol is please skip this section.

Ethanol is ethyl alcohol, yes the same alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. As a fuel it can be classified as biofuel since it is made by the fermentation of feedstock sugarcane and corn. In countries like Brazil Ethanol is widely used as an alternative fuel for gasoline and diesel.

Whilst there aren’t many if any cars in the UK that run on Ethanol. The Microfueler can be used with another purpose, as an independent renewable energy generator suitable for household use and even for small businesses.

With the GridBuster electric generator home and business owners will be able to drop off the conventional and expensive electrical grid and generate their own electricity.

According to its manufacturer the E-Fuel MicroFueler can produce a US Gallon – equivalent to 0.8 imperial gallons – of ethanol for only 56 cents of Dollar. With a weekly production of 233 gallons per week can be a cost effective renewable energy resource for small to mid-size business.

For more information about E-Fuel’s Microfueler please visit.

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Innovation, Not Insulation:

Felipe — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:16:04 +0000

We need Innovation, Not Insulation Says Bill Gates

Conservation and behaviour change alone will not get us to the dramatically lower levels of CO2 emissions needed to make a real difference. We also need to focus on developing innovative technologies that produce energy without generating any CO2 emissions at all.

These are the words of Bill Gates about global warming and the global urge to reduce CO2 emissions. Recently we published an article about Mr. Gates quest to find a clean source of energy that will “save us” from the eminent threats of climate change. The man who revolutionized personal computing is now investing millions to stop global warming.

In his article “Why We Need Innovation, Not Just Insulation“, published on his personal blog “The Gates Notes“, he says right now the world has two goals for CO2 reduction – 30% (off of some baseline) by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

The first target seems to be more achievable and it is why we tend to focus on it. According to Bill Gates to achieve the 80% CO2 reduction goal by 2050 we will have to reduce emissions form transportation and electrical production in participating countries close to neutral levels.

But we would still be left with emissions from other activities such as domesticated animals, making fertilizers and decay processes. Not to mention that some countries will still be too poor to invest in new technologies to reduce their CO2 emissions.

That is when the problem grows more complex. As the demand for energy from poor countries increases and it is clear these countries won’t have the money to invest in the latest and green energy generation resources it will be hard to reduce CO2 emissions.

Reason why Bill Gates defends the theory that: “no amount of insulation will get us there, only innovating our way to what is essentially zero carbon energy technology will do it. If we focus on just efficiency to the exclusion of innovation, or imagine that we can worry about efficiency first and worry about energy innovation later, we won’t get there.”

Cutting a long story short, we need an “energy miracle”, a carbon free energy generation resource. Will we ever find it? Do you agree that we need innovations and not insulations to stop global warming? Have your say in our comments section.

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Bill Gates Investing Millions:

Felipe — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:08:32 +0000

Bill Gates Investing Millions to Stop Global Warming

The man who revolutionised personal computing now wants to revolutionise the way we generate energy. After stepping down as the CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates has been investing millions of dollars to fight global warming; his ultimate goal is to find an energy source completely free of CO2 emissions.

Will Bill Gates ever find a way to generate carbon-free energy? Have your say here.

For the past few years Gates has dedicated most of his time and money to projects that range from the development of high voltage batteries to machines capable of extracting CO2 from the air.

As one of the most successful business men in history his words carry enormous credibility which gives more visibility to projects that might not leave the drawing board. Above all Bill Gates is seen as a visionary and if he believes such projects could change our lives, a lot of people will sit and hear what he has to say.

According to Mr. Gates the world needs an “energy miracle”, an energy source that is reliable, cheap and carbon free. He says we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket and purse every available path to achieve this really big breakthrough.

Around the globe there are many countries generating energy from renewable energy resources that look very promising but not big enough to cause the impact needed to make a change. Tidal energy, geothermal and even wind are all good and clean energy generating resources but we need more than that.

The father of Windows is working on a new nuclear approach called travelling-wave reactor, which uses waste uranium for fuel. That dream is far from becoming a reality but if it does we could have cheaper energy with no CO2 emissions.

To sum things up Bill Gates points out two immediate solutions the American and other Governments around the globe should take note to make the transition towards a carbon free society quicker. Increase investment in research and development of new energy generating technology and a well structured energy plan that considers each option based on the likelihood of success.

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Internet’s Energy Consumption:

Felipe — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 04:04:01 +0000

The Internet’s Energy Consumption and Its Carbon Footprint

Over the past few years there has been an ongoing debate about the growing amount of energy needed to power the World Wide Web, a.k.a the Internet, and the impacts on our environment. Many have tried to pin down the exact amount of energy needed to power the internet and its carbon footprint. Recently The Guardian published an article saying that the Internet’s carbon footprint was around 300 million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to every person in the UK flying to America and back twice over.

The article was published in August and with the number of internet users growing by the day worldwide I wouldn’t be surprised if these figures were higher nowadays. According to the UN by the end of the year there will be 2 billion world internet users, that is 1/6 of world population.

Hypothetically, if these growth rates remain the same, the entire world would be online by 2020.

To measure the Internet’s exact power consumption and then determine its carbon footprint we would need to know the precise number of computers, laptops and mobile phones that are online these days (which we don’t). Add that to the amount of energy consumed by all the Data Centres worldwide to then determine the internet power consumption and its carbon footprint.

Scary isn’t it? But we gathered some data just to give you a better understanding of roughly how much energy is needed to power the World Wide Web these days.

Back in 2006, data centres in America consumed a total of 61,000,000,000 kWh (yes you read it right 61 trillion kWh), which is enough to power the UK for 2 whole months.

A single Google search produces 0.2g of CO2. Not that much right? But now, 3,100,000 Google searches emit enough CO2 to power an average house for a whole month.

The monthly searches processed by Google produce 260 tons of CO2 which is equivalent to power an American fridge-freezer for 5,400 years. This consumes 3,900,000 kWh of energy, which is equal to washing 5.57 million loads of laundry.

But wait, it gets worse! A single spam message produces the equivalent of 0.3 grams of CO2. Multiply that by 62 trillion pieces of spam circling the World Wide Web each year and we have the emissions equivalent of driving around the Earth 1.6 million times.

Despite its huge energy consumption the internet is likely to play an important role as we move towards a low carbon economy. Thanks to advances in communication technologies an estimated 40% of the working population could work from home. If 40% of American workforce worked from home twice a week, carbon emission would be reduced by 53 million metric tons year, equivalent of taking 10 million cars on the road.

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New Wind Farms All Over Britain:

Felipe — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 02:33:20 +0000

Wind Farms To Spring Up All Over Britain

Wind Power a low cost green technology for the future - It is becoming ever so clear that the Government is planning in relying mostly on wind power to achieve its climate change bills commitment. By 2020, 15% of all energy generated in Britain must come from renewables. As the windiest place in Europe it is only logical that we rely on this type of renewable energy resource.

The Government is subsidising a handful of projects that are working on making eolic energy generation more efficient. Two of these projects have caught our attention – Floating Wind Farms and the new generation of giant wind turbines.

Floating wind farms have been discussed for quite a while now and the progress in research made by companies like Statoil are making a viable business opportunity for the near future.

The technology basically copies the principles from floating oil rigs and it will allow wind turbines to be sited in waters as deep as 300m. At the moment wind farms are usually sited at depths of up to 30m before it becomes difficult to build a standing structure.

These floating wind farms could also solve the complaint problems of many communities that are against onshore and offshore wind farms which are close to the shore and are blamed for ruining views.

But that problem won’t be solved anytime soon as a new generation of giant wind turbines taller than anything which has been built so far in the UK are planned for Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that two companies lodged plans to built wind farms with turbines of 493ft high. For reference these turbines will be three times taller than Nelson’s Column and two-thirds the height of Canary Wharf Tower.

According to the Sunday Telegraph that is only the tip of the iceberg as there is a total of 20 projects for these giant wind turbines.

As expected communities where the turbines will be built fear they are far too big and will blight the British landscape. Some claim that if it wasn’t for consumer subsidies made available by the Government these turbines would not be economically viable. Others go as far as saying that these turbines will be built in places where there is not much wind.

A spokeswoman for RenewableUK, the trade body for the renewable energy industry, said: “The increase in size is actually improving the economic benefits of wind energy since greater yields can be achieved, while maintaining the low environmental impact of smaller sized turbines.”

And added:

“Those seeking to block wind farm developments on the grounds of aesthetics are actually preventing the flow of thousands of pounds of investment into their local communities.”

Whether wind farms are built onshore or offshore and if they reach sky high heights or not don’t really matter to me as long as they prove to be efficient. So the Government and its regulatory bodies must be very strict when approving subsidies to renewable energy generation projects.

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Global Warming Fact and Figures:

Felipe — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:58:42 +0000

Fact and Figures about Global Warming

There are many facts and myths surrounding global warming but there is no debate in the scientific world that human evolution has contributed to it. In this article you will find facts and figures that prove human kind are contributing towards climate change. In the last 50 years, Alaska’s temperature has gone up around twice the rate of the rest of the world.

This could very well be because Alaska is close to one of the biggest producers of green house gases countries.

Aviation is considered responsible for about 3.5% of climate change, but that figure could reach 15% by 2050 as air travel increases.

If China eventually uses as much paper as the U.S. currently does, it will need twice as much as the entire world now produces. Imagine how many trees will have to be cut down to produce that much paper.

Landfills account for more than one-third of all emissions of methane (a greenhouse gas) in the United States. In third world countries this margin is even bigger.

Loading the dishwasher fully, instead of using partial loads, can save about 100 pounds of carbon a year.

Putting your computer in sleep mode instead of using a screen saver is good for saving almost 1,100 pounds of carbon annually.

Since 2007 China is the world leader in total carbon dioxide emissions with 6018m metric tonnes of CO2. But that doesn’t mean China is the most polluting nation in the world.

A more useful metric is carbon emissions per capita, the average American is responsible for 19.8 tonnes per person, and the average Chinese citizen clocks in at 4.6 tonnes. The UK’s CO2 per capita is at 9.7 tonnes per person while Australia is on 20.6 per person.

One thing that there is no debate among scientists and climate change experts is that we need to reduce our CO2 emissions and a way to do that is to invest in renewable energy generation resources.

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The Ocean’s Power:

Catalyst Commercial Services Ltd — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:01:43 +0000

The Ocean’s Power

Nowadays the buzz words of the energy industry are “renewable energy“. Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat. As you might have noticed some of the afore mentioned resources come from the Earth’s biggest natural resources, the Oceans.

Oceans can produce different types of energy, including thermal energy from the sun’s heat and mechanical energy from the action of waves and tides. Public and private institutions around the globe are investing big bucks to harness this energy resource in ways that are safe, sustainable and environmentally safe.

The U.S. Department of Energy, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has announced a joint research to study the potential environmental impacts of harnessing energy from the oceans. The research will also develop techniques and regulations to support the responsible sitting and permitting of offshore wind energy facilities and ocean energy generated from waves, tides, currents and thermal gradients.

Speaking on the matter the US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said:

“The nation’s oceans represent a major potential source of clean renewable energy, and the Department of Energy is committed to developing the innovative technologies that will harness that potential,”

As afore mentioned there are many ways to generate energy using the oceans like, tidal, waves, offshore wind farms. But without doubt the most innovative and eco-friendly one is OTEC or Ocean Thermal Energy Conservation.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) uses the temperature difference that exists between deep and shallow waters to run a heat engine. As with any heat engine, the greatest efficiency and power is produced with the largest temperature difference and up until now this was the biggest challenge for OTEC. But recent developments in efficiency of heat exchange assisted by modern designs performance can reach theoretical maximum efficiency making OTEC a viable and efficient renewable energy resource. For detailed information on OTEC please read: Ocean Thermal Energy

As you can see there are many ways to harness energy from our oceans but we must do it in a responsible way without affecting the ocean’s eco-systems.

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Facebook,Thanks For Higher Bills:

Catalyst Commercial Services Ltd — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:20:10 +0000

Is Facebook Responsible For Higher Energy Bills?

As a market leading energy broker we have noticed that the current generation is more committed to discovering and reducing its carbon footprint than ever before. But despite this growing awareness and our need to conserve and reduce our energy consumption, there is one thing that has changed our lifestyle, and increased our energy consumption like nothing else we have ever seen before. Facebook, the social networking site accounted for 1 in every 10 internet visits in September – up 4% from the same month last year, now overtaking popular search engines such as Google in the rankings.

Astonishingly Facebook now attracts 55% of all visits to social networking sites but others such as Twitter, Linkedin and Tumblr have seen visits at least double in the last 12-months, a recent report suggested.

With all of this increased online activity comes an obvious need for an increased supply of electricity, both from the millions of online users, to the huge new data centers needed to host all of this data. With its membership now passing the 500-million mark back in July, the storage and transmitting of messages, pictures and other information through Facebook uses a vast and still rapidly increasing amount of energy, as the network continues to expand its worldwide operations.

And with 4.5 billion updates posted to Facebook every week, the vast amount of energy needed for all of this online activity is enormous.

One of the pricing fundamentals of any commodity is the supply and demand factor, and with any increased demand, we see an impact on the supply and eventually the cost.

Because of Facebook’s rapid growth, their new hosting facility will need to be twice the size of its previous data centre, and to compound this issue the main source of electricity for the site is from coal fired power stations, the largest source of global warming pollution.

But this problem isn’t just limited just to Facebook, as the demand for cloud based applications grows Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others are investing billions of dollars to build new data centers to meet their growing demand for Web services, adding to the world pollution from computing.

In fact a recent study has estimated that the average user now spends at least 7-hours a month on Facebook alone, and reports suggest that this desire for social networking is set to increase further over the coming years.

Given that energy is an expensive and rising cost, these service providers do have a financial and environmental motivation to use as little electricity as possible.

But the implications for increased online activity is unlike anything that we have ever experienced before in our life times, and our desire and hunger for further social media interaction wont stop here.

Facebook is set to launch its latest Google taunting product on Monday, the long anticipated Facebook email system. The launch of an @facebook.com email is not itself a great surprise, as the existence of a secret project officially known as Project Titan has been circulating since February.

We just hope that our dwindling business energy supplies can cope long term with all of this increased use of energy.

More Facebook Facts

Facebook like served a billion likes in the first 24 hours after its launch
To put your friend count in perspective, the average user has 130
People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook, while the current active official user count now stands at over 500 million.
More than 2.5 billion pictures are uploaded to Facebook each month.
If Facebook were a country, it would be the fifth-largest country in the world, after China, India, the U.S., and Indonesia.
There are more than 800,000 developers building applications for Facebook.
70% of Facebook users live outside of the US.
Yahoo! tried to buy Facebook in 2006 for $1,000,000,000.
8,300,000,000 hours are spent on Facebook monthly.
Facebook was originally bankrolled by a co-founder of Paypal for $500,000

Please add your comments below as we would love to know your thoughts on this for you and your business.

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Ofgem’s E-Serve Expenditures:

Felipe — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:00:08 +0000

Ofgem’s new Unit spent more than £5m on energy consultants

Last week Ofgem quietly announced on its website the details of expenditures on external energy consultants. In just six months the energy regulator spent over £5m on new green taxes and incentives that ranged from feed-in-tariffs to smart meters.

Ofgem has an annual budget of £50m, if spending continues at the same rate by the end of the year the amount spent with external consultants will account for 20% of its total budget.

To administer environmental programmes and sustainability projects Ofgem created a special unit called, Ofgem E-Serve. The “E” stands for Environment, Energy and Efficiency. The new unit has used external consultants on 63 different occasions between April and September this year accounting for the total sum of £5m.

The details were quietly published on Ofgem’s website last week, ahead of new rules forcing state-funded organisations to detail all spending of more than £25,000. Among the highest paid sums is an energy consultancy company that pocket a total of £1.4m.

A spokesman for the regulator said: “Ofgem is unique among Britain’s regulators in capping its costs to 3% below inflation. This and other savings has saved more than £11m.”

On top of that, the value of schemes Ofgem has to manage has rocketed from £150m a year to £4bn. Such increase required a significant investment to be able to deliver these projects.

More about Ofgem E-Serve

Ofgem E-Serve focuses on administering environmental programmes and the delivery of sustainability projects such as offshore electricity transmission. Already running a £15bn offshore transmission tendering regime and many environmental programmes and services (some £3bn per year) and this is expected to more than double in the next decade.

Operation of Environmental Programmes (Existing Schemes) sits under the newly created role of Group Finance Director along with the support services covering HR, Information Management and Technology, Finance and Risk Management, Procurement, Building Services and Project Management. Development and implementation of the Offshore and Smart Metering projects sits under the newly created role of Commercial Managing Director along with Legal, and New Scheme Development.

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Energy Market Report Nov10:

Catalyst Commercial Services Ltd — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:46:14 +0000

Our monthly analysis of the UK gas and power markets is now available on line for the month of November 2010. The service is intended to keep you up to date with all the major news in Europe’s gas and power markets. It is also designed to keep power executives focused on market activity in an easy to digest format.

Your find our November 2010 report here and all historical energy reports can be located here.

If you would like more information on our services or would like to find out how this could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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£200bn Infrastructure Plan:

Felipe — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:12:35 +0000

£200bn National Infrastructure Plan Announced by Prime Minister

The Confederation of British Industry annual conference took place in London on Monday 26th of October. While politicians and business experts were discussing ways to deliver economic growth to the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron used the meeting to announce its £200bn private investment infrastructure plan.

Cameron couldn’t have picked a better time to announce such an ambitious plan that will “completely update and modernise” the UK’s infrastructure, including roads, railways and utilities, over the next five years.

The announcement caused mixed reactions from business organisations that ranged from an excited response from RenewableUK to a more moderate welcome from the British Chambers of Commerce who urged the Government to turn its “vision to concrete action”.

In short, the Prime Minister’ infrastructure scheme is more a challenge as the Government is looking for the private to provide £160bn of the total investment over the next five years. The idea is to incite companies to invest in a wide range of energy, transport, water and waste, broadband and digital projects. Meanwhile the Government will be investing £40bn in the key areas as announced in last week’s Spending Review.

A large sum of these investments is to be destined to subsidise renewable energy projects while another £70bn is estimated to be spent by electricity generators in building new nuclear power plants for “free” because there is no subsidy.

Support for the £1bn carbon capture and storage technology to develop clean coal is a key part of the programme but this has suffered a setback with the withdrawal of one of two companies building pilot plants.

On the other hand the Green Investment Bank will be using its £1bn initial fund to back up private sector investments the market regards as too risky.

Most of the spending in the five-year plan would come from the private sector “where necessary, helped by suitable regulatory change”, along with levies and State-imposed pricing rules in areas such as renewable energies.

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UK LNG Imports Set to Rise:

Felipe — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:21:52 +0000

UK to import more LNG this winter

According to the National Grid’s annual winter outlook gas demand is set to rise by 3.8% this winter. Such an increase will force us to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) by ship from the US.

Despite the need to import more LNG from overseas, power network operators calmed fears that there would not be a repeat of last year. Even in the event of a rough winter there would be more than enough capacity thanks to the increased capacity at Britain’s Isle of Grain LNG terminal and the British-Dutch BBL gas pipeline.

National Grid’s forecast predicted that utilities will favour gas-fired plants for energy generation in October and November and from December onwards coal plants.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, cautioned that changes in global energy prices and demand levels in Europe have a significant, unpredictable influence on the situation, which could create a well known phenomenon of fluctuating gas prices.

A spokesman said: “Ofgem’s position is that the energy industry must maintain its vigilance and take every step to prepare for this winter to ensure supplies for consumers.”

On the other hand the report stated the Britain has more than enough power generation to supply demand this coming winter. Predictions are that peak electricity demand for an average winter cold spell would be 57.7 gigawatts (GW), below 57.8 GW last year while power generation availability was forecast to be 66.3 GW.

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The UK's Largest Energy Blog - Catalyst-Commercial.co.uk » Renewable Energy

Inaccurate CRC Report Fines:

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Time To Turn Back on Nuclear:

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Japan’s Disaster Impacts on UK:

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Renewable Energy Ideas:

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Innovation, Not Insulation:

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Bill Gates Investing Millions:

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Internet’s Energy Consumption:

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New Wind Farms All Over Britain:

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Global Warming Fact and Figures:

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The Ocean’s Power:

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Facebook,Thanks For Higher Bills:

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Ofgem’s E-Serve Expenditures:

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Energy Market Report Nov10:

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£200bn Infrastructure Plan:

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UK LNG Imports Set to Rise:

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