Green Energy Republic

Chapter 1 – Our introduction to River Cottage HQ

By Hugo House, Good Energy’s microgeneration guru

With our partnership freshly agreed with River Cottage, the Good Energy team – Katie, Sophy and I -- went down to River Cottage HQ to see how we can help River Cottage improve its sustainability. We were met by Stewart Dodd, the River Cottage architect who’s helped turn the derelict farm into the living, breathing hive of activity that you find at RCHQ today. Stewart’s already done some fantastic work on making RCHQ more sustainable, and we’ll be working together to build on that in the future. You can read Satellite Architects’ blogs on sustainable architecture practice here.

First up we talked about the newly installed 6kW Proven wind turbine that stands at the entrance to RCHQ.  It’s a cracking spot for a wind turbine: near the top of a 100m hill with nothing between the turbine and the sea on its southwest side. A great wind speed of between six and seven metres per second, excellent for a small-scale wind turbine, which should earn RC around £1,500 a year on Good Energy’s HomeGen scheme that pays small scale generators for all the electricity they produce.

Walking down the hill to the farm, Stewart pointed out the artesian well that produces 7000 litres a day of fresh drinking water that bubbles naturally to the surface. A solar-powered pump carries the water to a storage tank up the hill to provide the necessary water pressure.

In the courtyard Stewart showed us the biomass boiler that provides much of the heating and hot water for RCHQ. The boiler is hooked up to the kitchen’s hot water system and the central heating system for the farmhouse and the Threshing barn – their events venue. The boiler uses about 40 tonnes of dried split logs that RC sources from Forestry Commission woodland less than half a mile away – a great use of a ‘Carbon Neutral’ local resource (wood absorbs as much C02 when it grows as is released when it’s burned).

While head chef Gill and his team were busy in the kitchens cooking up fresh mackerel for our lunch, Stewart led us into the Threshing barn to tell us about the high levels of insulation underfloor and in the roof that help to improve the thermal performance of the building. The original solid stone walls lose heat pretty fast so it helps to pack in as much insulation where it can be used.

And then, back outside in the sunshine, Stuart showed us RCs green water treatment system. All the waste water at River Cottage – the ‘grey’ water from the kitchens and the ‘brown’ water from the loos is channeled through a reed bed system. These hardy plants feed on all the impurities in the waste water, which supports their growth and once processed, the water is crystal clear and fit to pass back into the water table.

So, River Cottage is off-grid for their water supply, supported by a sustainable well-supplied source. Much of their heating is provided by local wood, a sustainable carbon neutral fuel. Their waste water is processed in the most natural way possible and delivered back to the environment as clean as it started. They’re generating their own green electricity and any extra they need they buy from us, 100% RENEWABLE!   

We were beginning to scratch our heads as to how we could help. While they’ve made some very impressive steps to cut their carbon footprint, there’s still room for further improvement. As always, the first step is to reduce your energy consumption. Some of RC’s fridges look like they might be sucking up quite a lot of energy and their offices are a temporary building that is heated by electricity (not a good fuel for heating) and the insulation can be improved quite considerably.

And the most important element at River Cottage – The Cooking – relies on propane gas – a fossil fuel.

So, where can we help? Well, we reckon you should always start with measurement. Once you know how much energy you’re using and how you’re using it, you can begin to look at how you can reduce your energy consumption and what other sources of energy you can consider switching to, including generating your own energy.

Once we’ve measured RC’s energy use, we’ll think about solutions to help them use less. Some new fridges will be a good idea and lots of simple but effective energy-saving measures too. And then, what about the energy they could generate? Will solar power work well at RC? Is another wind turbine a good idea? What about the cooking gas they use? Can we help them find a fuel the chefs will be happy with that’s also sustainable?

We’ll keep you posted.

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Re-news

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.

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Resources/Daily-news/Energy-bills/2m-fine-for-EDF-Energy

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 are switched to us. There are other good reasons of course, something about 100% renewable energy…

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Re-news

Solar Deal Reached
In very exciting news 12 European companies have just signed a deal to invest €500 billion into building a huge array of solar thermal panels in North Africa. The ambitious project aims to provide Europe with clean energy from solar power that will account for 15% of total demand by 2050.


We have been following this story over the last six months and have seen it grow from a concept to actually getting investment. Pioneered by the group Desertec the project involves concentrated solar power being harnessed in the Sahara desert with its constant and powerful sunlight, and transported to the European grid through new highly efficient transmission lines. The idea is part of a grander scheme to link large regions into one super grid. The advantage of this is that it makes renewable energy projects more feasible – if the wind is not blowing in the North Sea, the sun will be shining in Israel kind-of-thing, meaning the grid will always be buzzing with renewable energy.

Now a consortium of 12 companies, including Munich Re, Siemens and Deutsche Bank have committed to getting Desertec started.

For background on supergrids see our post here.

New Anaerobic Digestion Plant for the UK
North Yorkshire District Council have given the go-ahead for the UK’s largest Anaerobic Digestion plant to be built near Grantham. Built on an old Tate & Lyle site the plant will generate 32,000 MW of renewable energy a year from commercial food waste. The by-product will be a green fertiliser to grow more food.

The £20 million project is set to start construction in September and be online sometime in 2010.

Making Waves
A US-based marine energy company is to be the first to test its technology at the Wave Hub off the coast of Cornwall. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) signed an agreement last week to test their PowerBuoy design, hoping to prove their design with 5MW generating capacity.

The Wave Hub is a socket that sits on the sea bed connected to the national grid. It allows marine energy prototypes to be tested and therefore can provide companies with accurate results for their products. It is an exciting one-of-a-kind project that will push the marine energy industry forward leaps and bounds.

Real Time Coal Emissions
An interesting new website has sprung up called realtimecarbon.org. It takes real time data from the National Grid and gives a reading as to how much carbon is being emitted per kilowatt of energy at that exact time, trying to promote energy use when it is greenest
.
To fill in a few gaps… The National Grid is a constantly changing network reacting to consumer demand for electricity.  At some points in the day there will be more power stations turned on to full steam ahead to provide the extra energy needed for high demand times – like when Eastenders is on or during the elevenses tea break. The  more power stations online, the higher the concentration of CO2 emissions. Also, at some points where the wind is strong, there will be more green energy from wind farms buzzing in the grid reducing the amount of CO2 per kilowatt.

The idea is that this site can be used like a really basic, manual smart meter. You can keep tabs on it to see when the grid is most green, and then make your tea, switch your washing machine on, do the hoovering or whatever you need to do to consume electricity at its greenest. 

Greenpeace photos
Finally, just some beautiful images taken from the recent Greenpeace trip to the Arctic… A little reminder of what we need to protect.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/5851014/Greenpeace-in-Greenland-The-Arctic-Sunrise-surveys-the-Petermann-glacier.html?image=26

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A vision of the energy customer of 2050

By Chris Welby, Good Energy’s Commercial Director

Timeline 07:00 15th July 2050
Opening one bleary eye, William Welby (aged 43) turns the alarm off on his wind-up alarm clock.  At the same time the house comes to life as the windows automatically open on the shaded side of the house in response to the rising temperature caused by the early morning sun.

After a hot shower, using water heated by the solar thermal panels, William heads to the kitchen.  The fridge panel tells him he is currently exporting from his PV panels, and that their little electric Fiesta car has successfully charged overnight.  Good news!  It also tells him the current cost of import electricity is £3.50/kWh, and the temperature outside is already 27C. Not such good news. To avoid using grid energy, William makes his toast now, before requesting coffee from the drinks machine.  Thanks to the super insulation, the house is still cool.

As he eats his breakfast, William skims his personalised newspaper which arrives each morning via e-mail.  He smiles when he reads that shares in Good Energy (the UK’s biggest energy company) have risen again.  “Dad’ll be pleased” he thinks.  “Although if he regales me again with stories of the pioneering days at Good Energy, I swear I’ll kill him and inherit his collection of antique mobile phones”.

After breakfast, William heads upstairs to his office.  He sees his boss has already sent him a couple of e-mails.  He’s also due a conference call at 9:00.  He wonders whether to give his colleague Morwenna a buzz, to make sure she’s aware she has a conference call, very early for her!

Elsewhere in the house, his daughter is querying the location of the sun cream.  His wife, ever helpful, tells her it’ll be wherever she left it.  Then with a bang of the front door, he hears a quiet purr as they set off to school in the car.  William checks today’s energy use online.  His wife and daughter have managed to use £1.50 in electricity between getting up and leaving the house.  Had it not been for the solar PV, it would have been a lot more.

As the outdoor temperature rises, he hears the windows close and the renewable cooling system kick in.  He checks the weather forecast.  Highs of 38C, although it could be 42C in central London.  “Darn!” he thinks, knowing he’ll be catching the train there later today. However, it’ll give him a chance to try out the new high-speed train from Bristol.  45 minutes to central London means he doesn’t need to leave until midday.

After his conference call, William heads back to the kitchen and stacks the dishwasher before setting it to “Eco mode”, so it’ll start when it receives a signal via the smart meter that surplus wind power is on the network.  He notices the garden looking decidedly brown, but currently water meters are restricting water consumption.  Luckily, William’s  rainwater collector means he can keep his Veg  patch going.

Before setting off to the station, William sets the house to shutdown, which closes and locks all windows and doors, switching off all non-essential appliances. Then pulling his hat down against the sun, he walks to his local EV car club point to pick up a car to drive to the station, checking his swipe card is in his pocket to release the car from its docking point.

Dropping the car at the station docking point, William makes his way to the platform waving his credit card at the gate.  The card will be waved again at the platform exit gate in London, and he’ll be billed for the journey.  The train glides silently into the platform, not overcrowded for the time of day.

During the high speed journey, William continues to work using his handheld office.  “The speech recognition software works much better on these quieter trains” William notices.  “Less time correcting misheard phrases”.  His Dad used to lug a laptop around on business journeys, or try to type on the impossibly small keyboards on his Blackberry, or “Bloopberry” as he called it. His thoughts are interrupted by the train announcer.  “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be slightly later arriving in London due to a speed reduction imposed by a power constraint on the network.”  “Hmm!” thinks William, “probably means the dishwasher won’t run, if we have constraints”.  He’d noticed the lack of wind as he’d crossed the station car park, and with the Severn Barrage still years away from completion, power constraints were still a regular feature.  Another of his father’s Hobby Horses:  “Should’ve been built years ago, but politicians just dithered and pontificated.  Then Welsh independence got in the way.  Complete bloody shambles!” 

 “I wonder if I’ll be like that when I’m in my 80s” thinks William.  “Probably not.  Dad was always campaigning about something on energy and the climate.”

In London, William finds the underground shut due to the heat, so sets off on foot to his meeting. He’s glad he’s bought the water to drink.  Still the air is better than it used to be now carbon vehicles have been banned from the capital.  He decides to cut through Hyde Park, past the memorial to Boris Johnson, whoever he was.

Reaching his meeting, William shows his ID, and went down into the basement meeting rooms where it’s cooler.  He’s late, but so would others be with the tube shut.  “Afternoon William” says a voice behind him.  “Hi Professor” he replied.  “All ready for the history lesson?” asks the Professor “learn about the day it all started”.

Timeline 09:00 15th July, 2009
The story of a day in the future about my son may be fictitious, but the way we will live in 2050 is beginning to take shape as politicians in the UK and across the world start to get to grips with what we have to do to de-carbonise our energy supplies.

We take energy for granted.  We flick a switch and something happens.  It is human nature.  I once heard a guy talking about waste. He stated that if households had to take their own rubbish to the tip rather than have it collected, we would soon start using less and recycling more.  If we had to make our own energy, the same would apply.

The government’s roadmap to a low carbon economy brings together most of the strands of what we need to do.  We need our buildings to waste less energy (Energy efficiency, Low carbon homes etc), create their own energy where possible (Feed in Tariffs and renewable heat), change the way we use transport (Electric Vehicles, better public transport) and what energy they cannot avoid using should come from a network of low carbon sources (Renewable energy, supplemented by Nuclear and Clean coal if we must).  But this is not just about infrastructure, this is about attitudes and behaviour.  Like a bolt of lightning, human beings will take the easiest path to reach their objective.  The role of government is to ensure that the path that is easiest, is the one we need to take.  Carbon energy prices must rise.

We need to make inefficient houses without renewable energy as unpopular as houses without central heating.  (People only buy them at a discount so they can install it.)  We need to decarbonise our energy supply including everyday transport, leaving carbon-based transport to vintage vehicles, or vehicles which have to be fuelled by oil-based fuels.

Today’s government announcements are the first step on this journey to 2050.  The words are good and the ambition merited, but it will fail unless we win the hearts and minds of a cynical public, especially when they start to see their fuels bills rise.

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Countdown to Copenhagen… what happened at the G8?

On Thursday last week things were looking almost respectable. The G8 member countries had met in Italy and had agreed two key points:

1.    To prevent average global temperatures rising beyond 2°C.
2.    To reduce global emissions by 80% by 2050

Why is this an important step? Because for the first time, the USA has agreed to commit to targets that leading climate scientists believe to be the only way of avoiding runaway climate change. Targets it’s refused to accept before. Without the USA on board, as both a high polluter and formidable political influence, there could be little in the way of serious achievements at these climate talks.

So the turnaround is welcomed. But the agreement is not without its critics.

Firstly, the language of the deal is a little murky for our liking. Paragraph 65 says "We also support a goal of developed countries reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in aggregate by 80 per cent or more by 2050 compared to 1990 or more recent years”

Now, scientific consensus states that emissions should be reduced by 80% from 1990 levels, end of story. Not “or more recent years”. How did that slip in there? More recent years could mean 2009, and millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide more than 1990 levels!

Secondly, there were no indications of how these targets would be met, who would make them, and what would happen in between. It’s easy for politicians to sign a deal that says something must happen in 40 years, when they are long out of the picture. It’s much harder to make the important decisions of what we are going to do now.

Nevertheless, easy as it should be, it hasn’t happened until now. So we can look at this as progress of sorts. And at least politicians are now recognising the 2 degree threshold and 80% reduction necessity.

On Friday, things took a turn for the worse. The G8 committee invited representatives from five key developing countries to join the fray (the G13). The reason to get excited on Thursday was really in the United States’ turnaround under Obama’s steering. With the US on board, it was much more likely that the other key player as largest polluter in the world would join rank – China. The refusal of China to sign any climate agreement in the past has often been down to a stalemate with the US in a first-to-budge scenario. When the US made that step we all got a bit excited that China may now play ball.

Both China and India have made landmark steps by also agreeing that we should keep global temperature rises to a 2°C maximum. But they’ve refused to sign up to any binding emissions reduction targets.

India has quite rightly pointed out that climate change is largely a result of the developed nations’ actions – we have an historical responsibility to clear up our mess. Not only that, but industrialised nations are financially capable of dealing with climate change, unlike the developing world.

This presents us with a problem. In 2008, for the first time, the developing world matched the industrialised nations in emissions, and we now stand at around 50-50. China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest polluter. Without these countries support, it will be difficult to force through a meaningful replacement for the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen this December.

Having said this, despite China refusing to sign documents, it does have its own agenda, at least when it comes to renewable energy. It has hugely ambitious plans to de-carbonise its energy grid, and quickly. As previous blogs have described, the Chinese government intends to be generating a fifth of its energy from renewables by 2020. When you consider the size of China this makes a mockery of the UK’s slow progress. China’s plan includes a huge 100GW increase in wind power. To put this in perspective, at the end of 2008, there was 120GW of wind power world wide!

Also, neither China or India have closed the door on conversation. They are essentially saying “you show us that growth is compatible with sustainability and we will be onside.” This shifts the ball back into the G8’s court quite nicely. If we can show the capabilities of sustainable development the dialogue can progress.

As such a huge proportion of our goods come from these two countries, this is a fair call. It highlights the hypocrisy in moving our production industries to Asia, and then criticising it for having high emissions. The emissions haven't gone, they have just gone somewhere else.

It also reminds us about the power of the consumer. As production countries India and China are highly aware of consumer trends. If low carbon and environmentally conscious products are being sought after in the West, production countries will react to the demand. When you shop, you send messages – make sure these messages are the right ones.

So the cards are on the table. The US and Europe are in. The China and India are yet to be convinced. It is up to Europe and the US to form a powerful and persuasive allegiance now and work out a deal that will bring China, India and other developing nations into the arena so we can get a concrete agreement signed at Copenhagen.

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Countdown to Copenhagen – G8 to meet

The G8 countries (the world’s eight largest economies) account for 75% of the world’s carbon emissions. They are meeting in Italy next week for a warm up match, sorry, discussion, before the UN climate conference in Copenhagen this December. And guess who all eyes are on? That’s right, President Obama. Even Angela Merkel is saying so, in a sort of call to action, sort of pass the buck, sort of way.

Obama is fresh from a congress victory with his Climate Bill, and seems ready for some tough negotiating. For the first time ever, the US has indicated that it will commit to avoiding a 2°C global temperature rise through climate action – something Europe has been calling for and America avoiding. But India has proclaimed it won’t be part of any emissions reduction schemes. So it’s going to be an interesting one to watch. If Obama is on form, we may have a G8 meeting that actually achieves something.

This is a big test for Mr Obama, as it will set the tone for negotiation in December. Laying everyone’s cards on the table now will leave time for carefully persuading the laggers before Copenhagen.

Also wishing to make his mark is Gordon Brown, who is hoping to get industrialised nations to pledge $100 million in aid for sustainable and climate adaption initiatives in the developing world.  He’s up against it as Italy has one of the worst records in aid, and has cut its budget by 56% for next year. The other 44% is going to Mr Berlosconi’s hair gel fund. Which, incidentally, is petroleum based and bad for the environment.

It’s a big call from Gordon, recognising as he does that climate change caused by the developed world will have the biggest impact on the developing world. It’ll be very interesting to see whether this has any leverage over India’s position as a developing county.

It’s time to get active
Don’t go boarding any coal ships yet, but lets face it, it’s unlikely anything of use will come out of the G8 meeting. So back to where it counts – us. In the run up to Copenhagen it’s the job of the British public to show that we want a strong and binding deal struck at the meeting. One that commits the world to serious change. No half measures. No greenwash. So lets start making our voices heard – if Gordon Brown goes to that meeting with the knowledge that vast numbers of the UK’s people want him to fight for the environment he may just have the guts to do it.

Our partners Friends of the Earth are running a campaign to avoid clouding the issue of climate action through offsetting, and are pushing direct action. Add your name to their petition: http://www.foe.co.uk/climatetalks/petition.html

Oh, and, you have switched to Good Energy, haven’t you? Thank goodness for that…

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Re-News

Another action-packed week in the world of renewables and climate progress. With a few exceptions, there’s a definite sense of positive momentum finally kicking in.

The big guns – US Climate Bill
On Friday last week the US House Of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, in a nail-biting session. A tough victory for President Obama, the Bill should change the energy industry forever. It’s a big moment for the US economy and the environment – not as big as many environmentalists would have wanted but a greater step in the right direction than was even imaginable a year ago.

Here are the key points:

• An emission reduction target of 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050. A cap on big industry emissions is to be set, including the energy industry. Electricity suppliers will have to hit 12% renewables by 2020, and increase their energy efficiency by 8%.
• $1 billion a year for developing carbon capture technology
• New buildings to be 30% more efficient by 2012, and 50% more efficient by 2016.
• Agriculture subsidies for environmentally-friendly farming techniques such as tilling that keeps carbon dioxide locked in soil.

Passing the bill involved a lot of negotiation and in some places more compromise by Mr Obama than desired. Greenpeace USA went as far as calling on Congress to reject it. But in general the green community sees it as a step forward, not least because of Obama’s great persuasive skill. His diplomatic approach and huge efforts to gain public support have paid off with eight Republicans even voting for it, breaking their blanket opposition to action on climate change.

Here’s an all-American, fit for Hollywood quote from Ed Markey, one of the Bill’s authors "Scientists say global warming is a dangerous man-made problem. Today we are saying clean energy will be the American-made solution." Go team America!

The Bill must still go through the US Senate, where it is likely to find its passage even tougher.  So the next step is crucial. But this first positive move shows a willingness for change from the world’s second highest polluter and most influential political power, and gives hope for the ambitious talks in Copenhagen this December.

And Obama is clearly confident – the green light has just been given for $400 million of federal funding available for carbon capture research projects. With Carbon Capture that should last, hmm, about a week!

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=1659

Scotland does even better
Greenpeace are much more likely to applaud the efforts of the Scots this week in their own historic Climate Change Bill, which has been signed, and pledges to cut emissions 42% by 2020! This exceptional move places Scotland as leader in the developed world for commitments to climate action, and places them as the only country in the world to be taking measures scientists say are the only ways to avoid catastrophe. In other words, Scotland is the only developed country in the world taking climate change seriously.

This is a hugely positive move and should be an example to countries around the world.

More good news from the East
The sun rises and the wind blows. Those rogues the Chinese government are a mixed bag when it comes to climate change, but there have been some promising moves in the right direction of late. Now this is a biggie! Yesterday they announced the construction of a gigantic 40 Gigawatt, $17.6 billion wind farm to be built outside Jiuquan city to start this month. To put this in perspective, the London Array Offshore wind farm that has caused so much controversy over here will be 1 Gigawatt. It's a monster!

The Chinese have aspirations of generating 100GW of electricity by 2020, and hope to have 20 GW of this power station, “the Three Gorges Dam on the land” (lost in translation?) to be ready by then. That’s the same as the total of worldwide wind power in 2007!

http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=1663

Anyone for £70 billion and 250,000 new jobs?
Back at home the push for the green revolution has taken a further, hopefully persuasive step. The Carbon Trust has just published a report that says the UK could generate £70 billion and 250,000 new jobs by 2050 by dominating the offshore wind and wave industries.
The catch? Only £600 million.

The Carbon Trust is a government backed group dedicated to promoting low carbon technologies. They are claiming that with £600 million investment we could become world leaders in offshore wind and gain 45% of that market, contributing 15% of our emissions targets. With wave power, we already produce a quarter of the world’s technologies and if we continue along this route we will be rewarded with £2bn annual revenue and 16,000 jobs created.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/02/uk-renewables-potential-carbon-trust

Yet more evidence to keep in the armoury – now lets hope the government listens to it’s own advisory board.

… And now for the bad news…

BP cuts renewable energy budget and shuts down London headquarters
Poor old BP. They only made 300 gazillion pounds profit this week, and as you can imagine, need to make some cut backs. So they are shutting down their 80 strong wind and solar team in London and slashing the renewables budget by between half and a third.  As most of their finances are spent on marketing, they won’t have any left to do… anything.

Worst of all, the big wigs are trying to spin this as a positive move, with Chief Executive Tony Hayward claiming “It saves money and brings it closer to home … you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business],”

Well, it’s no surprise, and we don’t need em!

“Drax 29” found guilty
Last year the “Kingsnorth 6”, who broke into Kingsnorth power station forcing it to halt production were let off their charges as they rightly persuaded the courtroom that their actions were necessary in the face of a changing climate. No such luck for a group who hijacked a train full of coal heading for the Drax coal power station n Yorkshire (The UK’s single largest emitter) last year. The court found them guilty of obstructing the railway and they are waiting to be sentenced on September 4th.

We wonder if the same fate awaits these brave lot from Greenpeace who managed to board and halt a whole shipment of Eon’s coal just weeks ago:

Good Energy team

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Wind power can “revolutionise” UKs energy industry, without your lights going out

Breaking news to all those wind critics and NIMBYs – we can expand our wind power vastly in the UK without any power cuts, overloads or a strain on the national grid. Unlucky, you’ll have to think up some new half baked way to be miserable.

The BBC has broken news today of a report that suggests a huge increase of wind power by 2030, rather than having a negative impact, would be a beneficial thing for the energy industry and UK economy.

Of course, this is something Good Energy has known all along, but it is great to see an independent report making the headlines. The research was carried out by Poyry, an energy consultant working on behalf of the National Grid and Centrica.

The report reviewed over 2.5 million hourly weather reports on wind speeds around the British Isles, and concluded that wind could provide a huge portion of our energy mix, reliably and safely. It works on a simple basis – if the wind is merely a gently breeze in Aberdeen, it will be blowing gales in Cornwall. If our network of generators is designed well, there will always be plenty of power coming from somewhere.

According to Powrys, the price of electricity will depend not on consumer demand or fossil fuel imports, but on how hard the wind is blowing. When the wind is blowing at full speed, the report says, wind electricity from wind will be so cheap it will out compete fossil fuels and nuclear as the cheapest energy.

On the rare occasions the wind dies nationwide, backup generators will be available to power up for short periods of time. But this doesn’t equate to huge investments or an overhaul of the current grid, says Dr Phil Hare who led the research.

The report opens up an answer to the next logical question, can the UK be powered by 100% renewables?

"Some people were worried that the complexity stemming from intermittent wind with an overlay of tidal power peaking twice a day might simply have been too much change for the grid to bear. But our research shows the grid can cope."

As our CEO Juliet said this morning, “If the national grid can cope with Andy Murray playing at Wimbledon then it can definitely cope with wind power!”

If you read the BBC article it rounds off with a warning that all this will come at a high cost, as building renewables is expensive. But this depends on perspective. Are we talking energy prices (fossil fuel prices) today or tomorrow? Can we rely on a steady supply of fossil fuels from politically volatile places? We’ll have no control over the cost of coal in 2030. Freeing ourselves from this tie and moving to a low carbon energy grid is surely a sensible investment?

The price benefit of renewables is not as simple as looking at how much a turbine and some cabling cost. In April this year the Renewable Energy Association (REA) put forward a persuasive argument about the financial benefits of investing in renewables – some £12 billion a year. See the report here.  The job creation and industry boost alone should justify the costs.

We must also remember that the UK’s wind industry can play a large part in the global fight against climate change. It is commonly accepted that the cost of investing to prevent climate change is around 2% of GDP, as put forward by the Stern Report, against the costs of dealing with the effects, over 20% of GDP.

So we can spend more on a low carbon technology like wind, boost our economy and help avert global crisis and the need to spend billions on clear up projects. Or, we can scrimp now by investing in carbon dioxide churning coal power, supporting who knows what and increasing the chances of making the earth so hot we’ll need to spend all our money on making it habitable. 

Surely it’s a no brainer?

At Good Energy it is this that makes us do what we do. If you ever needed a good reason to switch to renewables surely the above is it. Switching to Good Energy means more than just changing your electricity company. You will be supporting a growing team of independent renewable energy generators ready to take on the new era of the industry and de-carbonise the national grid. Switching to Good Energy helps a growing green industry that will be fundamental in the future of the earth.

And best of all, we are a bloody nice bunch!

Who pays for de-carbonised energy?

By Chris Welby, Good Energy’s Commercial Director

A report just published by the Royal Society claims that energy prices are too cheap to afford the investment required to de-carbonise our energy industry.  The report also urges investment in energy efficiency to help meet our carbon targets.

All reasonable industry commentators recognise the underlying trend in energy prices is upwards.  The only way consumers can avoid hefty rises in energy bills in future (Uswitch recently predicted average household energy bills of £5,000 by 2020) is to use less.  As the p/kWh rises, then just to pay the same, consumers will have to reduce their consumption – or start generating their own.

This creates a conundrum.  The report, like several others before it, seeks higher energy bills to give the energy companies funds to invest, or for energy taxes to allow the government to act.  But if the customers react to higher energy prices by reducing consumption (by implementing energy efficiency measures, or by generating their own like many of Good Energy’s customers), then the hike in prices will not bring in the cash.

A good example is the network.  Hundreds of millions of pounds need to be spent to develop what many describe as the “Smart Grid”.  Most of the costs of this are fixed, but consumers pay by unit used.  If consumers use less, then the pence per unit will have to increase to cover these costs, causing a bigger reduction in consumption… a spiralling circle begins to develop.

The thought of energy prices spiralling ever upwards is not one politicians are keen to draw people’s attention to.  However, as those likely to be hit most are probably those least able to afford it, politicians need to find the solution.  Let’s hope the forthcoming white paper has some good ideas from the government.

In the meantime, we can help as best we can.  The Good Energy Shop can help customers with energy efficiency, and to generate their own using micro generation.  We also continue to engage with government to get smart meters into homes and businesses, and move towards a decentralised energy market with mass take up of micro generation and heat (see our HotRocs scheme).