Catalyst Welcomes Ireland's Vayu to the UK energy market http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/catalyst-welcomes-irelands-vayu-to-the-uk-energy-market/

Irish independent energy supplier Vayu today announced its expansion into the UK. Targeting the business gas market, Vayu will provide natural gas and energy services to businesses across the UK’s industrial and commercial sector. Vayu has grown steadily since 2003, when it became the first independent supplier to be awarded a gas shipping and supply license in Ireland. The company now supplies 22pc of Ireland’s largest natural gas business users and 15pc of the mid-sized gas user segment.

Gas customers include companies such as Tesco, IBM, Debenhams and DHL.

Liam Faulkner, Commercial Director of Vayu says the company is focused on becoming a leading provider of gas and energy procurement solutions to businesses across the UK, giving customers a competitive alternative to other suppliers in the sector.

The announcement sees Vayu become the first Irish energy supplier to target the UK business gas sector. Valued at nearly E9bn, the sector is almost ten times the size of the sector in Ireland and offers significant growth potential for Vayu.

“We believe there remains a large untapped opportunity to deliver new services into the UK market,” says Mr Faulkner.

“Vayu will be investing heavily in winning customers by changing the way UK businesses view their energy-related decisions and empowering customers to become more active in the area of energy procurement and demand management.”

“We have established a business model that has worked exceptionally well in Ireland, creating flexibility for gas users that wasn’t there previously. Our model is highly transferable – similar to the approach used by telecoms – which means we can follow our existing customers into the UK while also pursuing new business wins in this market.”

via BUSINESS WORLD – Ireland’s Vayu breaks in to UK market.

Catalyst Welcomes Ireland's Vayu to the UK energy market

EU Will be Forced To Curtail Renewable Energy Generation this Summer http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/eu-will-be-forced-to-curtail-renewable-energy-generation-this-summer/

Europe’s drive toward a power system based on renewable energy has gone so far that output will probably need to be cut within months because of oversupply.

Network operators are likely to curb solar and wind generation at times of low demand to prevent overloading the region’s 188,000 miles (302,557 kilometers) of power lines, Entso-e, the grid association in Brussels, said last month. Renewable output is poised to almost double to 18 percent by 2020, according to Energy Brainpool GmbH & Co. KG, a consulting firm in Berlin.

Europe’s fivefold surge in green energy in the past decade pushed prices to a nine-year low and wiped out $400 billion in market value of utilities from Germany’s RWE AG to GDF Suez SA in Paris. There’s so much power available on windy and sunny days in Germany and Austria that the number of hours producers had to pay consumers to use it doubled in the first five months of 2014, data from the Epex Spot SE exchange in Paris show.

“The system is costly and we need intelligent answers,” Johannes Teyssen, chief executive officer of Dusseldorf, Germany-based EON SE, said June 2 in an interview at the Eurelectric conference in London. “There are some hours where it is inevitable that we will be oversupplied.”

via EU Will be Forced To Curtail Renewable Energy Generation this Summer.

EU Will be Forced To Curtail Renewable Energy Generation this Summer

Scotland sitting on vast coal reserves, miner says http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/scotland-sitting-on-vast-coal-reserves-miner-says/

Scotland has a new gas industry waiting to be developed on its doorstep, leaders of the Scottish National Party have been told.

Algy Cluff, chairman and chief executive of Aim-listed Cluff Natural Resources, has raised the prospect of the huge coal reserves under the Firth of Forth providing a new source of gas for power stations and industry. He has had discussions with Fergus Ewing, the Scottish energy minister, about its potential contribution to the economy.

Energy is one of the central issues in the debate on Scottish independence. The Treasury argues that estimates of future North Sea oil and gas revenues are too optimistic but the emergence of a new gas source has not figured in any calculations. Mr Cluff is emphasising that he is not making a political point and sees the Firth of Forth development providing benefits north and south of the border.

He is due to visit the Grangemouth refinery and chemical complex run by Ineos on Tuesday in an effort to persuade the group to switch from imported shale to using Firth of Forth gas to underpin the long-term future of one of the most important businesses in Scotland.

Mr Cluff has spent the past 18 months setting up the framework for the business and preparing for the start of drilling but has been frustrated by the focus on shale. Mr Cluff, a serial entrepreneur with a North Sea oil and gold-mining background, feels the coal reservoirs under the Firth of Forth and off the Cumbrian coast offer the best initial development opportunities.

via Scotland sitting on vast coal reserves, miner says – Telegraph.

Scotland sitting on vast coal reserves, miner says

UK GAS-Spot prices drop to lowest since Oct. 2010 http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/uk-gas-spot-prices-drop-to-lowest-since-oct-2010/

British spot gas prices dropped to 40 pence a therm for the first time since October 2010 on Thursday morning as low demand and healthy supplies continued to weigh on the market.

Wholesale UK gas prices for delivery the next day traded at 40 pence per therm at 0730 GMT on Thursday, their lowest level since October 7 2010.

The renewed drop also means that British spot gas prices have shed 40 percent in value since the beginning of the year.

Traders said that the low gas prices were a result of high stocks following a mild winter and spring as well as healthy pipeline and shipped liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies.

Research company Energy Aspects said that prices could drop to 38 pence a therm once maintenance work at Britain’s main pipeline connection to continental Europe (IUK) this month prevents excess gas to be exported.

via UK GAS-Spot prices drop to lowest since Oct. 2010 | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters.

UK GAS-Spot prices drop to lowest since Oct. 2010

Firm scales back solar farm plans as the grid can't cope From Bicester Advertiser http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/firm-scales-back-solar-farm-plans-as-the-grid-cant-cope-from-bicester-advertiser/

AN energy firm has said it is not planning any more solar farms in Oxfordshire because the national electricity grid cannot cope.Green Energy UK Direct currently has two projects it is pursuing in the county, one in Culham and one near Bicester.But operations manager Neil Banks said the company would now look to North England for future investments after dropping plans for five other sites in Oxfordshire.Mr Banks said: “The feedback we are getting from the distribution network operator DNO, SSE, is that the network is getting quite full.

via Firm scales back solar farm plans as the grid can’t cope From Bicester Advertiser.

Firm scales back solar farm plans as the grid can't cope From Bicester Advertiser

Spot prices hit four-year lows with strong supply picture http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/spot-prices-hit-four-year-lows-with-strong-supply-picture-3/

Fracking should be national priority, say Lords

An influential committee of Peers has criticised the slow pace of progress towards the development of a shale gas industry in the UK.

Economic potential

The coalition government has committed to going “all out for shale”, believing that the resource can support the UK’s low-carbon transition while delivering significant economic benefits. A series of fiscal and regulatory measures related to the sector have been announced over the past year, which have sought to incentivise shale gas exploration.

In a report, published on 8 May, the Lords economic affairs select committee said that the UK was “exceptionally fortunate” to possess substantial onshore oil and gas resources, and that exploration and appraisal was needed in order to assess their economic potential.

But the committee said it was disappointed that the exploratory drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) needed for shale gas development had hardly begun. It found that, since the lifting of the government’s moratorium on fracking in 2012, the Environment Agency had not received a single application for the permits necessary for exploratory drilling.

The report said that creating a shale gas industry would allow the UK to reduce its energy imports, and that this would be especially valuable in light of the continuing fall in output from the North Sea.

via Spot prices hit four-year lows with strong supply picture.

Spot prices hit four-year lows with strong supply picture

Spot prices hit four-year lows with strong supply picture http://www.energy-broker.co.uk/spot-prices-hit-four-year-lows-with-strong-supply-picture-2/

Government cuts back support for solar farms

Large-scale solar projects will be unable, from next year, to access one of the key support mechanisms for renewable technologies, under new plans unveiled by the government.

Exceeding expectations

In its Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Strategy, which was published in April, the government confirmed its intention to shift the emphasis for growth in the solar sector away from ground-mounted developments and to the UK’s 250,000 hectares of south-facing commercial rooftops.

The decision reflected growing concerns over the speed at which large-scale solar continued to be deployed in the UK. Industry projections indicated that, by 2017, significantly more solar might be built than the 4GW deemed affordable by the government as part of its budget for low-carbon power.

In a consultation, issued on 13 May, the government proposed to close the Renewables Obligation (RO) to solar developments of above 5MW from April 2015. This is two years earlier than the mechanism, which has subsidised renewables projects since 2002, will close to other technologies.

via Spot prices hit four-year lows with strong supply picture.

Spot prices hit four-year lows with strong supply picture