environmental news & information about the UK electricity supply industry
Yü Group has bought Bristol Energy’s B2B customer book, adding 4000 meters to its portfolio. The company – an independent supplier of gas, electricity and water to the UK business sector – has paid £1.24 million in cash on completion for the portfolio. It has gained £1 million of receivables, with the majority due by August 2020, the Yü Group said.
Current 10th Aug 2020 read more »
Nottingham City Council has written off £24 million of debt from its energy supplier Robin Hood Energy. At an audit committee held on Friday (31 July), the council updated its 2018/19 annual report which had been delayed as the energy company had not finalised its accounts for the previous year. Documents from the committee meeting show that since 31 March 2019, the council had provided loans, parent guarantees and equity that totalled £40.4 million to the struggling supplier. This investment is now estimated to be worth just £16 million, having been impaired by £24.4 million.
Current 5th Aug 2020 read more »
Times 6th Aug 2020 read more »
Edinburgh-based supplier People’s Energy is expanding its operations, opening a new office in Selkirk. The company has joined the South of Scotland Enterprise as new tenants of Ettrick Riverside Office Space, taking over the space that was previously used by OVO Energy. Over the next eighteen months, the expansion will create 100 jobs in the Borders region of Scotland.
Current 5th Aug 2020 read more »
EDF’s Board of Directors on 29 July approved the condensed consolidated financial statements for the six-month period ended 30 June. The report showed that the COVID-19 pandemic had caused a slowdown in construction and maintenance of NPPs in both France and the UK, with further delays expected to the schedules for completing both the Flamanville and Hinkley Point C projects. EDF Chairman and CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy said, however, that despite the economic slowdown, “the impact of the crisis on our main financial indicators remains contained”. He added: “This context requires us to adopt a savings and disposal plan that will allow us to continue deploying our CAP 2030 strategy and to keep our debt under control. Decarbonising the economy, combining the fight against global warming and sustainable growth, is a development opportunity for EDF.” Nuclear output in France amounted to 174.0TWh, down 29.7TWh compared with the first half of 2019, around 13TWh of which was attributed to the health crisis. In the UK, nuclear output was 22.7TWh, down 1.8TWh compared with the first half of 2019. This was due to the schedule of maintenance operations and planned outages. Output was still negatively impacted by the outages of Hunterston B and Dungeness B NPPs. In Belgium, both nuclear and wind output were up.
Nuclear Engineering International 3rd Aug 2020 read more »
France’s new energy minister has called a major French nuclear project “a mess” in public interviews. The European pressurized reactor (EPR) that was commissioned for the Flamanville nuclear power plant, where it joins two existing pressurized water reactors, has been delayed and plagued by problems. The latest extension takes the project timeline from 13 years to 17 at least. The goal with the EPR design was to continue to kit out the world’s highest-output nuclear plants, with individual reactors that were more powerful and safer. The EPR uses less uranium because its chemical design is more efficient. And it’s not any kind of major technological leap; instead, it’s an iteration on a previous design that’s just a little bit better.
Popular Mechanics 3rd Aug 2020 read more »
People’s Energy to create 100 jobs at Selkirk office slated for closure. An ethical energy supplier has announced plans to create 100 jobs at the former Selkirk office of SSE in the Borders, which is being closed down by its new owner. Husband and wife David Pike and Karin Sode, the founders of People’s Energy, are setting up the customer service facility as their firm launches into the prepayment meter market with the aim of bringing these tariffs down to the same level as those paid by direct debit customers. The move is part of the social enterprise’s goal to eradicate fuel poverty. People’s Energy launched in August 2017 with £500,000 generated through a crowdfunding campaign. It expanded into the business energy market in September 2019, and currently supplies its 100% renewable energy to 180,000 customers. The directors have pledged to make public their decisions, accounts, salaries and wholesale energy costs, and to return three-quarters of their profits to customers in the form of an annual rebate against future bills.
Herald 4th Aug 2020 read more »
British clean energy investor Octopus Renewables continues to sweep up solar assets across Europe, with the firm’s Infrastructure Trust today having inked a deal to purchase 14 subsidised solar plants in France with a total installed capacity of 119.5MW. Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT) today announced it has signed a deal to snap up the portfolio for €58.9m from a minority investor and a renewable fund backed by Samsung Securities.
Business Green 31st July 2020 read more »
EDF, in the red, announces a vast savings plan. The group will initiate a large sale of assets, after a net loss of 700 million euros linked to the health crisis. Accusing a net loss of 700 million euros, Electricité de France (EDF) announced, Thursday, July 30, a vast plan of savings and disposals to offset the effects of the health crisis on its activity. The electrician wants to reduce its operating expenses – related to the operation of its infrastructures – by 500 million euros, between 2019 and 2022, and to commit to around 3 billion new disposals by 2022. Some of these decisions are linked to reduced nuclear production due to declining demand, which affects electricity distribution and supply activities. During confinement, the closure of an entire section of the French economy caused a 15% to 20% drop in electricity consumption. Since the start of the year, nuclear production has fallen by 29.7 terawatt-hour (TWh) compared to the same period in 2019. The health crisis has also forced EDF to slow down or postpone construction sites and the work of numerous maintenance operations on nuclear reactors, upsetting the schedule of the sector already affected by numerous delays. However, these operations are decisive. The French nuclear fleet has to undergo numerous “ten-yearly” inspections, necessary to extend the life of the reactors.
Le Monde 30th July 2020 read more »
French energy giant EDF plans to cut operating costs by €500m up to 2022 and to generate €3bn from asset sales to combat slipping profits, it said today. EDF reported a fall in net profit in the first half of 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
City AM 30th July 2020 read more »
London Power, the energy supplier launched by London Mayor Sadiq Khan earlier this year, has convinced almost 3,000 Londoners to switch to its service in its first six months of operating. The energy supplier, which is run under a joint partnership between Octopus Energy and City Hall, was launched to provide Londoners with green electricity at a “fair price”. London has one of the lowest rates of supplier switching and large numbers of households on prepayment meters, a situation which leaves more than one in ten Londoners living in fuel poverty. Newham has the highest level of fuel poverty in England and six other London boroughs (Brent, Waltham Forest, Haringey, Redbridge, Ealing and Harrow) are in the worst 10 per cent. London Power aims to help those households by offering residents the cheapest fixed and pre-payment tariffs on the market. Profits are to be invested in community projects to tackle energy poverty.
iNews 30th July 2020 read more »
The owner of British Gas is to offload its North American supply business for £2.85 billion to shore up its finances. Centrica, the embattled energy group that was valued at only £2.4 billion on Thursday night, said yesterday that it had agreed to sell Direct Energy to NRG Energy, of the United States, after it had received a “highly compelling unsolicited offer”. Centrica also owns a 20 per cent stake in Britain’s nuclear plants and co-owns a North Sea oil and gas business. It has been looking to offload both, but the sales have faltered. Centrica said that the sale of Direct Energy should deliver net cash proceeds of £2.7 billion, enabling it to significantly reduce its net debt of £2.8 billion and to contribute materially to its pension scheme. It also said that it intended to sell its nuclear and oil and gas businesses when appropriate. AMr O’Shea said: “This is a turnaround story and it is going to be challenging and it will take time, but I am confident we have everything we need to deliver this.”
Times 25th July 2020 read more »
British Gas owner Centrica has said it will sell off its US energy retail arm in a £2.8 billion deal. Direct Energy, which was bought by Centrica in 2000, will be sold to NRG Energy, allowing the British company to focus on its home markets in the UK and Ireland. Direct Energy has around 4,000 employees and four million customers, making it one of North America’s largest gas and electricity suppliers.
Energy Voice 24th July 2020 read more »
Centrica shares soared after the British Gas owner announced a deal to sell its North America business for £2.9bn and despite sinking to a loss for the first half of the year. The ailing energy provider said it has reached an agreement to sell Direct Energy to NRG Energy for $3.6bn (£2.9bn) in cash. The North American energy supply, services and trading business is being offloaded as part of a strategic shift that will see Centrica focus on its core markets in the UK and Ireland.
Telegraph 24th July 2020 read more »
Centrica also owns a 20 per cent stake in Britain’s nuclear plants and co-owns a North Sea oil and gas business. It has been looking to offload both but sales processes have faltered amid safety outages at the reactors and the plunge in oil prices. Centrica said that it was still focused on completing the sales “at the appropriate time”.
Times 24th July 2020 read more »
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