Low Carbon Transition Plan update - £1 billion for wind projects
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is making available £1bn of loans for wind farm developers thwarted by lack of investment, in an attempt to make it easier to reach renewable energy targets and expand onshore wind projects.

It’s an important symbolic move, with the green industry at last benefitting from the recent government bailout of the ailing banking sector. With the state holding a stake in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds being it can exert more influence on where investments go. A good start.

Whilst DECC is playing this down, it may be the last hope for workers protesting the closure of Vestas wind turbine factory in the Isle of Wight. Vestas has decided to shut its operations there down due to a lack of demand in the UK market.  Perhaps this funding will encourage the plant owners to reconsider.

Conservative councils reject more wind farm applications than they approve
One reason Vestas cited for its financial problems is the overly stringent planning processes and red tape holding back wind farm developments. Research published by Greenpeace shows that local councils run by the self-styled “green” Tory party blocked nearly 160 MW of wind farm applications and allowed around 45 MW last year. Labour councils, however, had a slightly better record, approving more than they rejected: 68 MW approved and 62 MW rejected.

Interesting news, considering Tory leader David Cameron has pitched his party as the environmentally-friendly choice (remember his application to put a wind-turbine on the roof of his London house?). 

“One of the reasons Britain’s green industrial revolution is yet to take off is the lack of domestic demand for wind turbines, and a key reason for that has been the attitude of many Conservative councils,” said John Sauven, Greenpeace’s executive director, interviewed in The Guardian.

Britain’s most polluting postcodes
Information experts Experian and the Stockholm Environment Institute have teamed up to analyse data concerning British household carbon emissions, and the middle classes come out of it badly. By studying energy use, shopping habits and travel of average households in different postcodes the team labelled some of the worst offending communities as emitting an average of 36 tonnes of CO2 per household per year! Now considering the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says we must reduce household carbon footprints to around 4.5 tonnes per household, this shows we have a long way to go. It also reminds us that individuals CAN make a difference, and emissions reductions aren’t all down to big companies and governments. Some of the better performers around the UK, in poorer inner city areas achieve more like 14 tonnes per household per year. This compares with an average 1 tonne a year for developing nations such as India.

Buying non environmentally-friendly food, like avocadoes from Guatemala or prawns from Mozambique, frequent flights and living in bigger fuel-guzzling houses mean that more affluent areas have a much higher carbon footprint. Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire was the worst offender, alongside most of the Surrey commuter belt.

Meet the Belcha – the biggest polluter in Europe
It was name and shame this week in the climate world. Not just UK postcodes, but single emitters. Europe’s largest emitter prize has been awarded to the aptly named Elektrownia Belchatow, a monster of a coal burning power station in Poland that chugged out 30,862,792  tonnes of carbon dioxide last year, and it’s about to get bigger! Plans are being drawn up to expand the plant’s capacity by 20% over the next year!

The inefficient guzzler has earned itself the title of Climate Enemy Number 1 by the Sandbag Climate Campaign based in London. Sandbag is an interesting concept that focuses on buying EU pollution permits to remove them from the system, making it harder for big polluters to get their hands on them.

A bad week for EDF
French energy giant EDF have had a rough week. Due to the heat wave in France, where temperatures have reached above 30 degrees, EDF has had to temporarily shut down a third of their nuclear power plants for fear of an accident. As a result French electricity generation has fallen to its lowest level in six years, forcing the state owned utility to import energy from Britain.

Many of the French nuclear plants are built in land and rely on river water to cool their reactors. But the heatwave has warmed the waters to the extent that they cannot be relied on to keep the plants from reaching dangerous temperatures.

Pretty worrying for nuclear power considering the earth is heating up and many more heatwaves are anticipated. And only at 30 degrees?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article6626811.ece

Back in the UK things aren’t looking good either, as Ofgem has just fined EDF £2 million for “poor services”. It seems they have been failing to connect customers quickly enough to their electricity services and have no system of monitoring in place. The fine is on top of the £450,000 compensation EDF has already been forced to pay out to customers.

www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

Customers want clearer energy bills
Research carried out by switch site USwitch has shown that three quarters of consumers want clearer energy bills and a staggering 57% of customers did not understand their tariff breakdown on their bill. 73% of people asked thought they needed a “maths qualification” to understand their bills!

Here at Good Energy we’ve been working hard on re-design our bills, and they’re coming on a treat. So keep your eyes peeled, and if you want clear bills then make sure you switch to us. There are other good reasons of course, something about 100% renewable energy…

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