Weekend press round-up: Uswitch takes adverts telling people not to switch

In our latest review of sector coverage in the national media, a major switching site has started advising energy customers to stay with their current supplier. Meanwhile, the future of nuclear is expected to dominate the Conservative party conference and new research shows 53 per cent of England’s rivers are in a poor state.

Price comparison site Uswitch takes adverts telling people not to switch

Energy price comparison service and website Uswitch has taken out national adverts telling people not to switch.

The service ordinarily tells people they should be constantly checking their energy bills and seeing if they can find a cheaper supplier.

Ordinarily, people are able to save themselves hundreds of pounds by ditching their gas and electricity company and switching to someone else – using a service like Uswitch.

But the energy crisis has seen bills rocket this week, and smaller companies have been collapsing – leaving millions of customers in a forced move to another supplier.

In their advert, Uswitch says: “For over 20 years we’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen to switch their energy. We even named ourselves Uswitch.

“But as you’ll no doubt have heard, there’s an energy crisis going on. Which no one needs right now, especially with winter on the way.

“From today, energy bills for many households around Britain are going up.

“So you’re probably wondering what to do.

“For most people, energy suppliers can’t offer much in the way of cheaper deals right now.

“So today we’re advising you to do something we’ve never said before… stay put.”

The advice echoes information given out by other experts, including Martin Lewis.

Wales Online

All Britain’s electricity to be green by 2035

Boris Johnson will this week announce that all of Britain’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2035 as he seeks to reduce the country’s dependence on gas and other fossil fuels, The Times has been told.

The prime minister will use his conference speech to commit his party to plans to hugely increase investment in renewable and nuclear energy as Britain faces a crisis caused by a surge in the cost of gas.

He is expected to argue that taking all electricity from green sources would be a significant step towards the government’s ambition to hit net zero emissions by 2050, and reduce exposure to fluctuations in gas prices.

Renewable energy sources generated 43 per cent of Britain’s electricity needs last year, and gas, oil and coal contributed about 40 per cent. The remaining capacity was filled by nuclear.

The new target will require significant growth not only in offshore wind generation but also in nuclear capacity to provide a “baseload” of electricity to cope with variable supply and demand. It will mean a minimum quadrupling of offshore wind from the present level over the coming decade.

Johnson hinted at the approach in an interview with The Times at the weekend. He said that the government would “deal with the cost of electricity and energy” by increasing “our clean energy generation”.

He said: “Dealing with the cost of electricity and energy [is one of] the long-term things that government has got to do. We’ve got to get back into nuclear, we’ve got to increase our clean energy generation. That will bring the cost of energy down and bring down the cost of transport.”

Johnson is also expected to commit to the construction of at least two large-scale nuclear power plants. Britain’s seven existing nuclear plants provide about 17 per cent of the country’s electricity needs but this will fall by almost half by 2024.

The Times

Ovo circles rival Bulb as soaring energy prices squeeze suppliers

Ovo, the household energy supplier, is eyeing further deals less than two years after completing its takeover of rival SSE’s retail unit.

The country’s third largest supplier is poised to consolidate its position as soaring gas and wholesale power prices destabilise rivals.

The Telegraph understands Ovo is looking at deal opportunities including Bulb, the country’s sixth largest provider, which is reportedly seeking new funding. Ovo could face rivalry in that process from Octopus, another challenger brand which has also been linked to Bulb.

Ovo’s latest accounts, covering the year ending December 2020 and seen by The Telegraph, show that it has spent about £110m on costs associated with the SSE deal, including integrating the business.

That pushed it to a loss of £141m for the year, but underlying operating losses have narrowed to £7m, on revenues which have grown from £1.4bn to £4.45bn.

Commenting on the results, founder Steven Fitzpatrick said the company is on track to be making underlying operating profit in 2021.

He added: “2020 saw Ovo embarking on the largest industry consolidation deal to date and was a crucial milestone on our mission to decarbonise Britain’s homes.

“Our progress in 2021 bears the fruits of this commitment and we are now well advanced in building a technology-led, low-cost platform serving one in seven households in the UK.

“We continue to invest in the technology and people that will take our business to the next level as we gear up for the crucial transition to a zero-carbon economy.”

Sunday Telegraph

Octopus boss Greg Jackson: Our energy rivals are paying for their wild bets

Greg Jackson can’t suppress a chuckle. The energy crisis has sent a number of suppliers to the wall already and the founder of Octopus Energy is watching in amusement as his rivals, large and small, artfully adapt their lobbying efforts accordingly.

Soaring wholesale gas prices have sent costs rocketing for energy firms, triggering calls from smaller suppliers for the price cap to be lifted. Meanwhile, Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, recently performed an extraordinary volte-face when he dropped his company’s long-standing opposition to the price cap now it is wiping out some of the competition.

“I think we’re just about the only people who haven’t changed their views, aren’t we?” says Jackson. “The people who used to oppose the price cap now seem to support it, and the ones who supported it now oppose it. The reality is that without the price cap, households would be facing huge rises in energy costs.”

Despite the turmoil that has already claimed ten smaller suppliers, Octopus Energy’s tentacles are spreading. It has taken on nearly 600,000 customers from Avro Energy, one of the firms that collapsed, is reportedly eyeing a swoop on rival Bulb, and has just received a near-£500 million cash injection from the investment fund of environmentalist, and former US vice-president, Al Gore. And that’s all in the past few days.

After the Avro deal, Octopus, which has 1,800 staff globally, will supply more than three million households.

Jackson, 50, says he has been shocked at how some companies were placing “one-way bets in the market” by taking on customers and only buying the energy needed to supply them later on — in other words, not hedging by purchasing energy in advance at an agreed price. That is fine when prices are flat or falling, but fatal when they soar — as they have done. “The cause of the companies going under isn’t the price cap — it’s the fact they didn’t hedge their energy costs,” he says.

He wants the regulator to introduce stress tests to ensure companies have hedged appropriately. “It’s not onerous or intrusive to do that. It’s important to make sure irresponsible or naive behaviour from companies doesn’t lead to the kind of cost of failure we’re seeing.”

Octopus Energy has quickly grown into a giant. Last year it secured the backing of Tokyo Gas, allowing it to launch in Japan, and of Origin Energy in Australia. It now has offices in central London, Brighton and Leicester.

Jackson won’t comment on his interest in buying Bulb, which is seeking more cash, but the latest injection from Al Gore’s Generation fund values Octopus at £3.3 billion — the same as Centrica. Jackson’s 6 per cent stake is worth about £200 million. The thought of matching the former state-owned monopoly’s valuation raises a smile, but he has his sights set far higher. “If we get anything like a reasonable market share as we expand globally, you’re looking at a business that’s worth tens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars,” he claims .

“When we started out, I was nervous to make those kind of statements. But where we stand today, we’ve got so many ingredients, it’s really possible — partly because the UK has the opportunity to be the Silicon Valley of energy.” Other big markets such as the US, he explains, are controlled by local monopolies, making competition and innovation impossible.

“The UK is probably one of the best markets in the world. You won’t hear the incumbent [British Gas] saying that because they used to enjoy oligopolistic profitability whilst under-serving customers and overcharging them,” he says, never missing a chance to take a potshot.

Read the full interview (subscription required) here

Jackson also spoke to the Mail on Sunday

The Sunday Times

EDF chief urges UK to clarify future of nuclear power station

EDF has warned that it is now “urgent” for the UK government to decide on the future of the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear power station, including whether China’s CGN should remain involved in the project.

Simone Rossi, head of the French utility’s UK arm, is hoping to take a final investment decision by the end of 2022 on the nuclear plant earmarked for Suffolk on England’s east coast, which would generate enough electricity for 6m homes but is strongly opposed by environmental groups.

Before EDF could commit to building the plant, Rossi said it needed UK ministers to settle matters such as which partners were involved and legislation on the preferred funding model.

“I think really the time is now for all those decisions to coalesce together and say right: ‘Do we want to do it or not?’ And if we want to do it how are we going to do it?” Rossi told the Financial Times. “This is all now urgent.”

State-owned CGN holds a 20 per cent stake in Sizewell, and has an option to participate in the construction. EDF holds the remaining 80 per cent.

Rossi said CGN’s continued participation in the project was “a matter for the UK government to decide”.

The Financial Times reported in July that ministers were examining ways to remove CGN from UK nuclear projects following a deterioration in relations between London and Beijing over issues including the clampdown on dissent in Hong Kong.

UK officials are considering plans for the government to take on CGN’s 20 per cent stake in Sizewell and either sell the shareholding on to institutional investors or float it on the stock market.

Rossi admitted the viability of Sizewell could hinge on investment from North American funds, which would prove problematic if CGN were to remain involved. Washington in 2019 put CGN on an export blacklist over accusations of theft of US technology for military use.

“We will have to rely on all backers, including US backers, as the absolute amount of funds we need to raise is considerable,” said Rossi. “We will have to be very wide in our reach to the market.”

Some analysts have suggested CGN could pull out of the Hinkley project if it was excluded from the Sizewell plan.

But Rossi said he thought Sizewell could be dealt with in isolation, saying: “I don’t see any reasons why CGN would want to walk away from a good investment such as Hinkley Point.”

The Financial Times

Surging gas prices and fuel bills focus Tory minds on the nuclear option

Among the subjects preoccupying delegates at the Conservative party conference in Manchester on Monday, energy will be near the top of the list.

Soaring global gas prices, a lack of windpower and surging household bills have focused minds on Britain’s energy needs – and the role of nuclear power in particular.

For the past decade, Britain’s ambitions to build more nuclear power plants have been entwined with China’s. Hinkley Point C, the long-delayed and over-budget £23bn plant in Somerset that will be the first new power station in a generation, is being bankrolled with Chinese cash.

China’s nuclear ambitions – at least as far as Britain is concerned – may be about to collide with a new political reality. Opponents of Chinese involvement in UK infrastructure are turning cartwheels at reports that the government is planning to eject the People’s Republic from Sizewell C – a £20bn sister to Sizewell B on the Suffolk coast, which is intended to power 6m homes.

Beijing’s international nuclear ambitions have suffered a “body blow”, according to Iain Duncan Smith. The former Conservative party leader’s Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China campaigned, successfully, for the telecoms giant Huawei to be kicked out of the UK’s 5G network, after pressure from Donald Trump’s administration.

“The British government has learned the hard way that we’re going to have to stand up to them,” he said.

Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Sinosceptic China Research Group, hailed the “more realistic approach”. “Chinese state-owned companies shouldn’t be building nuclear power plants in Britain,” he said. “As the China Research Group has shown, Beijing’s attempts to interfere in other countries are growing and the UK should not make itself vulnerable.”

The duo were reacting to suggestions, first reported in the Guardian, that officials are examining methods by which China General Nuclear (CGN), which has a 20% stake in the Sizewell C project due to be built by France’s EDF, can be removed from the equation. An announcement could come as early as this month, with taxpayers’ cash used instead.

CGN was due to step up its involvement in British nuclear post-Sizewell, through a majority position in Bradwell B in Essex, intended to be a showcase for the Chinese-designed Hualong One (HPR1000) reactor.

If China is forced out of a minority financial position in a plant built by French state-backed EDF, the prospect of a Chinese-controlled facility a mere 40 miles from London is surely a non-starter.

The Guardian

Majority of England’s rivers polluted with sewage

All of England’s rivers are currently failing to pass cleanliness tests in a crisis that has seen swimmers falling ill and wildlife choked by algae, as calls grow for rules around the release of raw sewage to be properly enforced.

Figures collected by charity the Rivers Trust show that 53 per cent of England’s rivers are in a poor state at least partly because of water companies releasing raw and partially-treated sewage.

The public were warned against swimming in filthy rivers during heatwaves earlier this year and in recent weeks high-profile figures including the BBC presenter Jo Whiley have fallen ill after swimming in river water.

Among those campaigning to clean up British waterways is former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey, who last year announced plans to start legal action over the Environment Agency’s management of England’s rivers.

“As a nation, we’re going to have to face a very simple situation. Do we want our rivers full of our own human waste?” he said.

“The truth is, unfortunately, there’s been a long term issue about failure of regulatory oversight, lack of political leadership, most of that, driven by concerns about the price of water, and now we’ve reached the situation through incompetence that every river is now basically full of sewage,” he said.

Just one stretch of English river, the Wharfe at Ilkley, Yorkshire, has been given designated bathing water status, compared to 32 spots in German rivers and 420 in French rivers.

Read the full report (subscription required) here

Daily Telegraph

‘A stain on the nation’s green record’: UK renewables growth falls to lowest rate in a decade

The growth of renewable power in the UK has collapsed to its lowest rate in a decade, new analysis has found.

Analysis of official figures shared with The Independent shows that total renewable capacity grew by just 2.1 per cent in the year to December 2020.

This compares with an average annual rise of 18 per cent over the past decade – and an increase of 6.1 per cent in the year before.

The rate of growth of renewables, such as solar and wind power, has fallen every year since 2015, government figures show.

Boris Johnson has previously promised to make Britain the “Saudi Arabia of wind power”, and boosting renewable power was a key part of his 10-point climate plan announced in 2020.

Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said the findings reveal “how much the growth in renewables has faltered over the last few years”.

He told The Independent: “Once again we see the signs and impact of the gap between this government’s rhetoric and reality. They are climate delayers.

“It is the government’s failure to plan ahead by scaling up our zero-carbon energy supply that has left our country so reliant on the international gas market and vulnerable to soaring gas prices.”

Ed Davey, former energy secretary and leader of the Liberal Democrats – who carried out the analysis – said the figures were “a stain on the nation’s green record”.

“These figures show that the government’s claims of global climate leadership are all bluster and no action,” he said.

“Under the Conservatives, the UK renewables industry has been neglected to the point where coal power stations are being fired up.”

The Independent

China orders energy firms to secure winter fuel supplies at all costs

China has ordered state-owned energy companies “to do whatever it takes” to secure fuel supplies, putting further pressure on the price of gas paid by already struggling UK energy suppliers.

The vice-premier, Han Zheng, told China’s energy companies to make sure there is enough fuel to keep the country running as Beijing battles to manage a power crisis that threatens to hit growth in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Britain’s energy suppliers have come under severe strain in recent months after a spike in gas prices. Several have gone bust after they made promises to customers of maintaining fixed prices that they were unable to honour.

Ministers have faced criticism from business groups for a lack of planning that has left the UK acutely vulnerable to price swings on international energy markets.

China has been hit by widespread power cuts that have closed or partly shut factories, hitting production and global supply chains.

Beijing is seeking to secure supplies of gas and coal for its power stations, which still provide more than 50% of the country’s electricity generation.

The crisis has been caused by a confluence of factors, including rising overseas demand as economies reopen, record coal prices, state electricity price controls and tough emissions targets. More than a dozen provinces and regions have been forced to impose curbs on energy usage in recent months.

Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas producer, is understood to be preparing further price increases, though it mainly supplies continental European countries.

The Guardian