Weekend press round-up: Taxpayer cash could be used for overseas power projects

In our latest review of sector coverage in the national newspapers, the government is considering support for international renewable projects that connect to Britain via interconnectors. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s investment tsar has set out how Britain can seize on an imminent £8 billion spending spree by international manufacturers to “catch the wave” of electric cars. Plus, a survey has shown half of people now think internet access is more important than water, gas and electricity.

Taxpayer cash could be used for overseas power projects

Households could be forced to fund power plants abroad as ministers race to hit Boris Johnson’s net-zero ­carbon target.

The Government is considering plans to extend support for clean power to overseas wind and solar farms, which export electricity back to Britain via undersea cables.

Officials believe it could help slash the UK’s carbon emissions cheaply, by developing extra sources of power that can fill in gaps on still or cloudy days in Britain.

But the idea may prove controversial at a time of heightened focus on the costs of the UK’s climate goals, and who will foot the bill.

In a call for evidence published this year, officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said that the electricity system needs a diverse range of sources of power.

They added: “This diversity could extend to supporting international renewable projects, which could directly flow power into our electricity grid.

“This could involve opening future support to renewable generation projects outside of Great Britain, which are not currently eligible under our existing policy and legal framework.”

The civil servants said that the costs and benefits will need to be carefully weighed, “as funding such projects through the current renewables levy will mean that less Great Britain-based generation could be supported.”

Daily Telegraph

Britain aims to capture £8bn electric car spending spree

Britain aims to seize on an imminent £8bn spending spree by international manufacturers to “catch the wave” of electric cars, Boris Johnson’s investment tsar has revealed.

The City grandee Lord Grimstone, who now leads the Government’s Office for Investment, told The Telegraph he is in discussions with a raft of potential investors in the UK to capitalise on an “auto-Renaissance”.

“We reckon on a back-of-the-envelope calculation there is over £8bn of investment at stake over the next few months which could potentially come into the automotive sector,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

Investment decisions are due from Japanese carmaker Nissan over a new gigafactory in Sunderland for electric car batteries. Stellantis, the owner of Vauxhall’s Ellesmere port, has held talks over making electric vehicles on the site.

The South Korean duo LG and Samsung are also reportedly in discussions over major gigafactory investments, while West Midlands carmaker JLR is looking to source batteries from a UK plant.

Industry estimates suggest that eight gigafactories would be needed to maintain current UK car production of 1.5m vehicles a year if all models were electric, while December’s trade deal with the EU has increased the urgency for UK sourced batteries to meet ‘rules of origin” requirements.

According to the Faraday Institution research body, the UK could miss out on 105,000 jobs by 2040 without gigafactories.

Lord Grimstone said: “I think we are in the middle of what I call the “auto-Renaissance” because all the manufacturers have been caught out across Europe and the UK by the speed at which the customer – not the manufacturer, not the Government – is moving towards electric vehicles.

“Every single one of them I talk to – all of them – are changing their production schedules, bringing forward new models and reconfiguring their whole global footprint.

“This is a huge opportunity for the UK. Out of this kind of massive change, you are either going to catch the wave, or if you don’t it is not going to be there for another 20 or 30 years.”

Read the full interview with Lord Grimstone (subscription required) here

Sunday Telegraph

Electric cars are ‘not enough for UK to go fully green’

The shift to electric vehicles is not enough to decarbonise travel, a think-tank warns. Walking, cycling and public transport must play bigger parts in a greener post-pandemic Britain, says the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

Luke Murphy, the head of the IPPR’s environmental justice commission, said: “Little progress has been made in cutting transport emissions over the past three decades. The Government’s current preferred strategy places an overwhelming focus on the shift to electric vehicles. Such an approach will not deliver for people or planet.

“We need to massively expand the provision of, and affordability of, clean public transport options, such as trains, buses and trams. [And also] help more people to regularly walk and cycle, alongside a shift to electric vehicles for those that need them.”

The IPPR report says that without additional measures, current approaches to reaching net zero could lead to an 11 percent rise in car traffic by 2050.

It also warns there could be a 28 percent rise in car ownership, resulting in 10 million more vehicles on the road by the middle of the century.

The Government should aim for the level of car ownership to peak by 2030, it adds.

Daily Express

Edinburgh electric double decker buses unveiled

The Scottish capital has launched its first fully electric double decker buses in a new partnership with SP Energy Networks.

The £1.7 million project was funded as a flagship project of SP Energy Networks’ £20 million Green Economy Fund to enable Edinburgh to take a major step in its journey towards the city becoming Net Zero by 2030.

The buses will “bring immediate benefits to the city and the communities in which they operate, helping improve the city’s air quality and delivering multiple health benefits”.

Lothian’s four all-electric double decker buses will be introduced onto route 10, which connects outlying parts of the city, Western Harbour and Bonaly with Edinburgh’s city centre.

SP Energy Networks is part of the ScottishPower group, a Principal Partner for the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Glasgow in four months’ time. It said it is developing an energy model that will play a significant role towards reaching the UK’s world-leading climate change targets and is investing a total of £10billion in the clean energy generation and networks infrastructure needed to help the UK decarbonise and reach Net Zero emissions.

The new electric buses were built by Alexander Dennis, Britain’s biggest bus builder, at its Falkirk factory and will benefit from a smart management system which allows reduction in well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.

Transport Minister Graeme Dey, who attended the official launch of the new electric fleet at Dynamic Earth, said: “As the country comes out of the pandemic and restrictions continue to ease, it is essential that our recovery is a green one, which has returning to public transport at its heart. This all-electric service is welcome news both for Edinburgh bus users and the environment.

“It’s also fantastic to see private sector organisations collaborate to tackle climate change. The funding from SP Energy Networks to support Lothian’s electric fleet with buses made in Falkirk is very much an initiative to be welcomed and encouraged.’’

The Herald Scotland

Is fast broadband now more important than water?

Openreach will start work in preparation for the rollout of ‘ultrafast, ultra-reliable’ full fibre broadband in 551 more towns and cities across Britain later this year, it has announced.

The latest batch of locations where Openreach will start work to install the broadband technology this year include Bournemouth, Dunfermline, Kettering, Sunderland and Wrexham.

The full fibre ‘future-proof’ broadband will, according to Openreach, be capable of carrying speeds up to 1Gbps, which is more than 10 times faster than the UK’s current average.

Meanwhile, startling new research by Cisco has claimed that over half of people now think internet access is more important than water, gas and electricity.

The move is part of the company’s £15billion programme aimed at getting quicker broadband into 25million premises.

It said it was making as new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology available to 43,000 premises every week.

But, some reports have claimed Opeanreach needs to be deploying FTTP to 75,000 premises a week in order to meet in 2026 target.

This week fresh research stemming from a survey of over 2,000 people has thrown up some interesting findings about people’s attitudes about broadband.

Cisco’s latest UK Broadband Index revealed that 56 per cent of people think internet and broadband costs are too high.

Sixty-seven per cent said the high cost of broadband internet access meant low-income families could not afford it, while nearly 30 per cent claimed they do not access the internet at home because it is too pricey.

In fact, 55 per cent of people think broadband should be free, while a third think it should be provided as a public utility.

Over half of people surveyed said they thought fast and reliable internet access was more important than water, gas and electricity.

Daily Mail

Green energy push ‘the only positive from Covid’

During the summer in Michigan, when temperatures can surpass 32C and humidity is high, energy demand often doubles as households crank up their air conditioning.

But in the early days of the pandemic last year, the state’s largest energy provider found many households were worried about how they would meet the rising costs over the summer. Unemployment was mounting and those who were forced to work from home saw their electricity usage growing fast.

Headquartered in the city of Jackson, Consumers Energy responded by giving away 50,000 “smart” thermostats to help customers statewide save money during the crisis. However, the devices have also had a longer-lasting effect: reducing electricity demand during the peak hours of 2pm-7pm, when the carbon intensity of the grid can be higher.

This smart thermostat scheme, launched in May 2020 with Google Nest and technology company Uplight, is one example of how some cities and areas have benefited from the acceleration of clean energy projects during the pandemic. Companies and policymakers have sought to use the recovery from the crisis to speed the shift from fossil fuels and rebuild their economies with “green” infrastructure programmes.

Consumers Energy’s electricity customers who accepted the thermostat — which is controllable with a mobile phone and offers a clearer way of tracking usage — were also signed up to a programme designed to shift households’ energy usage outside peak hours. In these peak times, electricity is more expensive and, to meet demand, utilities often rely on fossil fuel plants that can be powered up quickly.

Now, households are alerted a day ahead when the utility expects demand to be high — described to customers as an “energy savings event” — and their homes are automatically cooled in advance. Smart thermostats are then automatically adjusted by a few degrees during the crunch period to reduce demand on the system, although customers can still change settings manually if they are uncomfortable.

Before the pandemic, it could be a “challenging conversation” to encourage customers to use less energy during peak hours, says Brian Rich, senior vice-president of Consumers Energy’s parent company, CMS Energy. But the economic fallout of the crisis meant many began to see the financial benefits.

Rich says the company “started talking about energy efficiency and demand response through the pandemic as a cost play and bill savings play for customers”.

Luis Buil, director of global smart solutions at Spanish utility Iberdrola, says that, since the pandemic, more towns and cities in Europe have been considering how to introduce clean energy projects. This is a response to people’s desire to live in cleaner, greener places — and to take advantage of the new €750bn EU coronavirus recovery fund, known formally as Next Generation EU, designed to help states undertake green and digital transformations.

Buil says a number of Spanish municipalities have been asking how to replicate measures that are being introduced in Zorrotzaurre, an artificial island in the northern city of Bilbao once dominated by heavy industry. It is being turned into a residential and business district accessible only to zero-emissions vehicles and featuring solar rooftop installations, geothermal energy, and centralised district heat generation to cut emissions.

“Thanks to the Next Generation fund we are working with a lot of municipalities in order to build similar projects, in order to be ready to ask for the funds when it is open,” says Buil. He adds that many other municipalities are keen to introduce community or collective solar schemes in residential buildings, given the large proportion of Spaniards who live in flats. “Probably the only positive thing about Covid is we really realised we can live in cities without smog, without noise,” he says.

The Financial Times

Green groups’ fury at loophole in new North Sea oil test

Prospective oil projects in the North Sea with the capacity to produce more than a billion barrels will avoid a new test designed to assess their impact on the climate crisis, the Observer has learned.

In a development that has angered environmental campaigners, it has emerged that proposed new developments representing some 1.7bn barrels of oil will not have to undergo the forthcoming “climate compatibility checkpoint”, designed to determine whether they are consistent with the government’s climate commitments.

The test will be applied before projects are given an initial licence. But the government has confirmed that previously licensed projects will not have to meet it. Campaigners described this as a major loophole that risks undermining the UK’s position before crucial Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow this year.

It comes as ministers face mounting pressure over the Cambo heavy crude field off the coast of the Shetland, which could be given approval before Cop26 begins. The oilfield is expected to operate until 2050. Campaigners say the project contradicts recommendations made by the International Energy Agency, which has called for “no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects”.

The Cambo project is among those that will not have to pass through the government’s proposed climate checkpoint. Data held by the Oil and Gas Authority confirms there are many other schemes in the same position.

The OGA said that licensees would still need to secure other approvals and environmental assessments to commence drilling. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy confirmed that undeveloped projects that had a licence would not have to satisfy the new test, but said oil and gas would still be needed for some time to come.

“As part of the UK’s shift towards green energy, through our landmark North Sea transition deal, we are backing the decarbonisation of the oil and gas sector to support high-value jobs and safeguard the skills necessary to develop new, low-carbon industries across the country,” said a spokesperson.

“We are working hard to drive down demand for fossil fuels, investing hundreds of millions of pounds into clean energy. We have also ended support for fossil fuels overseas. As recognised by the independent Climate Change Committee, there will continue to be ongoing demand for oil and gas over the coming years as we transition to green energy.”

But green groups called for the loophole to be tackled. “Before we even got a chance to find out whether the government’s climate compatibility checks are any good, it turns out a slew of oil and gas projects are going to slip through the net anyway thanks to a major loophole,” said Sam Chetan-Welsh of Greenpeace UK. “If Boris Johnson turns up in Glasgow with a pipeline of climate-wrecking projects ready to be approved, the stench of hypocrisy will be smelled worldwide.”

The Observer

Utility Week’s weekend press round-up is a curation of articles in the national newspapers relating to the energy and water sector. The views expressed are not those of Utility Week or Faversham House.