Builders of the UK's first nuclear plant in two decades are about to take a vital component and break it. The 110-tonne spherical steel lid was destined to sit atop EDF Energy's new reactor at the Hinkley Point site in Somerset.
Australia has outlined plans to appoint a commissioner to crack down on windfarms.
The UK's renewable-energy industry is gearing up for next week's Global Offshore Wind 2015 event in London.
Petrol prices have reached a six-month high with many motorists cutting back on car use, according to the AA. And the extension of the districts in which drivers get a special rural area fuel rebate has failed to kickstart sales at the pumps in some places, the AA said. The average price of petrol nationwide is now 117.19p a litre - up from 116.42p a month ago and above £1.17 for the first time since mid-December 2014. Diesel is now averaging £1.21 a litre, compared with 120.7p in mid-May. Since the low point for fuel prices was reached on February 1 this year, average prices have risen by more than 10p a litre. An AA/Populus survey showed that 37% of the 28,080 AA members polled had already started to cut back on car use, with this figure rising to 48% for lower-income drivers. The rural fuel rebate scheme, previously only available for those living on some of the UK’s islands, was extended on May 31 to around 125,000 people living in remote mainland locations, with those eligible getting a 5p cut in pump prices. The AA said today that this had led to a doubling of business at a Devon filling station but that some drivers in Scotland had missed out, apparently due to confusion with the scheme. The AA highlighted a parliamentary question last week by Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP MP Paul Monaghan. He asked why proprietors of fuel stations in Durness and Scourie in Scotland had not been reimbursed through the rural fuel rebate scheme for fuel duty reductions they had passed to customers. Treasury Minister Damian Hinds replied that taxpayer confidentiality had to be maintained and he could not comment on individual circumstances. Scotland currently has the priciest petrol, at 117.6p a litre on average, while Wales and Northern Ireland have the cheapest - at £1.17. Scotland also has the most-expensive diesel, at 121.6p a litre while Northern Ireland has the cheapest, at 119.7p a litre - the only area where diesel is under £1.20 a litre. AA president Edmund King said: “Our fuel report this month illustrates vividly the power of pump prices on consumer spending. “It sends out a clear message to government on fuel tax: don’t be mistaken into thinking that because pump prices are 13p-a-litre lower than this time last year that drivers are ripe for another fuel duty increase."
Nicola Sturgeon has described the UK Government’s decision to end subsidy payments for onshore wind farms a year early as “wrong-headed, perverse and downright outrageous”.
The planned closure of the onshore wind farm subsidy scheme threatens more than 100 future jobs at a development in rural Perthshire, as well as £10 million of investment at the site, according to industry figures.
Energy technology provider JDR has been appointed to supply subsea cabling technology services for the Rampion offshore wind farm. The contract, which was awarded to the firm by E.ON, will enable JDR to design and manufacture 142km of 36 kilovolt inter-array cables for the project.
The pope has issued a stark warning over the urgent need to tackle “extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems“ in an eagerly-awaited message on the environment. In the first papal encyclical Pope Francis has written, he said climate change was mostly down to human activity and policies were urgently needed to cut carbon emissions, such as by reducing fossil fuels and developing renewables.
The UK Government’s decision to end subsidy payments for onshore wind farms a year early could face a challenge in the courts. Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing warned that scrapping the “renewables obligation” scheme could result in legal action being taken by the green energy sector.
Plans to end subsidies for new onshore wind farms will push up energy bills and could face judicial review, the Government has been warned. Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has unveiled proposals to close the existing subsidies payment schemes a year early for new onshore wind projects, to fulfil a Conservation election manifesto promise. The Tories claim the onshore turbines “often fail to win public support and are unable by themselves to provide the firm capacity that a stable energy system requires”.
The Government is to end new subsidies for onshore wind farms by closing the existing payments schemes a year early, it has announced. The move aims to fulfil a Conservative promise ahead of the election on ending new public subsidies for onshore wind farms and changing the law so local people have the final say on them. The Tories claim the onshore turbines “often fail to win public support and are unable by themselves to provide the firm capacity that a stable energy system requires”.
An eagerly-awaited message from the Pope being formally published today is expected to warn of the urgent need to tackle “unprecedented” climate change and destruction of nature. The papal encyclical, a letter sent to 5,000 Catholic bishops worldwide, is being published in five languages, and Pope Francis has said the document is “addressed to everyone”, not just the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. A leaked draft of the encyclical, which appeared on the website of Italian news magazine L’Espresso in Italian earlier this week, indicates the pontiff will use it to spell out the moral and scientific case for protecting the environment.
Japan’s $405million offshore wind project is set to gain a 7-megawatt turbine. The turbine, which will be the largest of its kind ever to be used at sea, will generate power 12 miles (20km) off the coast of Fukushima.
Councillors are being asked to relax a planning restriction surrounding a massive 186-turbine offshore windfarm. Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd (MORL) won planning permission from the Scottish Government to construct 186 turbines 14 miles from the Caithness coast last year. Members of Aberdeenshire Council then approved two electricity substations near New Deer to support the scheme. Approval was granted on the condition that MORL provided council officers with information on how 20 miles of underground cabling would impact on roads and the environment.
The world’s smallest biomass power plant has made its arrival at the Royal Highland Show. VG Energy will display the the E3 biomass powerplant at the event which will run from June 18-June 21 in Ingliston while in the long term it use the device in future operations.
Braemar Community Hydro (BCH) has reached the half-way mark to fund a hydroelectricity scheme in the heart of Cairngorms National Park. It takes the community-funded initiative close to the trigger point where a construction contract can be signed for building on the Corriemulzie Burn, near Mar Lodge, to begin. The main share offer opened in May and a month on the fund now stands at a total of £400,000, half-way to the overall target of £800,000.
Health and safety in the offshore renewable-energy industry will be under the spotlight when international experts attend a conference in Aberdeen this week. Maritime, shipping and legal experts will discuss how offshore renewable safety can be improved and accident levels reduced. Bruce Craig, partner and leading offshore health and safety expert at law firm Pinsent Masons, will address delegates on how to ensure crew safety during offshore windfarm operations and focus on risk management to avoid potentially dangerous situations.
Power prices in the UK may fall below zero during some hours before the end of the decade as intermittent renewable energy output is poised to soar, according to National Grid Plc. Negative power prices, already prevalent in markets from Germany to the Nordic region, occur when supply exceeds demand. Having to curb cheap supply from green power is a waste, Duncan Burt, the company’s head of commercial operations, said last week in an interview. To reduce bills and help balance the system, the UK’s biggest users should reduce consumption at times of peak demand and take advantage of periods with plenty of green power, he said. The UK government plans to boost the share of energy demand met by renewables to 15 percent in 2020 from 5.3 percent in 2013, potentially boosting price swings. That may give users from factories to supermarkets a greater incentive to adjust consumption more actively, according to Burt.
The Scottish energy minister has called on the UK Government not to “slash” support for onshore wind energy and undermine efforts against climate change. Fergus Ewing’s appeal comes as UN climate negotiations get underway in Bonn this week, in advance of talks to be held in Paris later this year. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) is expected to announce measures to deliver on the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to “end any new public subsidy” for onshore windfarms. This week Mr Ewing will make the case to Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd on the need to continue support for the onshore wind sector as a way of driving down emissions, creating jobs and “keeping the lights on”.
Full power output has been achieved at the Westermost Rough offshore windfarm, a major renewable energy project located off the UK's east coast. Westermost Rough is capable of generating up to 210 megawatts (MW) of electricity – enough to meet the annual electricity demands of well over 150,000 UK homes. It is the first offshore windfarm to make commercial use of the Siemens 6MW wind turbine, with each of the 35 turbines in use taller than the Humber suspension bridge, the towers of which are 156m in height.
Green-energy technology development body Wave Energy Scotland (WES) has struck a deal allowing it to tap into expertise at Aquamarine Power, the firm behind the Oyster wave-power machine. The three-month tie-up is known as Project Know-How and allows WES, which was established as part of Highlands and Islands Enterprise late last year at the request of the Scottish Government, to benefit from knowledge gained through the development of Oyster technology.
A new international research programme is being launched to make renewables cheaper than coal within 10 years. The scheme’s backers, who include leading figures from business, government and academia, warn that cheap clean energy is crucial to keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 2C - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change. Like the US programme in the 1960s to put a man on the moon, the Global Apollo Programme has a clear goal, in this case to make electricity from solar and wind cheaper than power from coal in every country and to do so within a decade.
Atlantic Offshore Rescue is to unveil the third vessel of its modernisation programme. The standby vessel operator will showcase the Ocean Falcon, which totals £300million, at a ceremony in Aberdeen today. Ocean Falcon is a new H820 design from Havyard Ship Design. It was built and developed in Passai, Spain by Zamakona shipbuilders, in close collaboration with Atlantic Offshore Rescue over an 18 month period.
Local communities will have the final say in bids to build large scale onshore wind farms under plans set out in the Queen’s Speech. The Government is introducing an Energy Bill which will change the law to remove the need for the Energy Secretary to approve large wind farms of more than 50 megawatts (MW), schemes which would typically involve dozens of wind turbines.
The development of new hydro-electric power schemes will no longer be economically viable if the UK Government continues to cut subsidies, a London-based investment fund has warned. Hydro schemes have been an attractive proposition for cautious investors as they use established technology, have a predictable output and are designed to last 50 years with little maintenance, said David Freeder, an investment manager at Downing. The government sweetened the deal further in 2010, when it introduced the feed-in tariff (FiT) system, which dishes out fixed-rate payments for electricity generated by small-scale schemes, including solar, wind and hydro.