News and Reports

While the European Union and the United States have been pushing forward with plans for green growth, despite the opportunities provided by the energy crisis of 2022, the United Kingdom has floundered. This lack of progress is particularly relevant to net-zero commitments in relation to the decarbonization of the household sector which is a serious problem since buildings account for around 19% of all UK greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

The Envirotech team were excited to exhibit at the Distributed Energy Show in Telford last week between 14-15 March 2023.

This article focuses on the potential for green trade between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The United Kingdom has made considerable progress in decarbonizing the generation of electricity in recent decades. State intervention may have helped this transition, but the decline in the coal industry and the growth in wind power capacity through subsidy schemes have meant that the low-hanging fruit is all but picked and the real challenge and cost lie ahead as the transport, construction, and household heating sectors electrify. It has been estimated that electricity generation in the UK needs to rise to meet the demand from these sectors from around 300 TWh to around 550 to 680 TWh by 2050.

It is difficult to understand the logic behind Britain’s policy toward renewable energy. To meet its plans for a low-carbon economy it has been estimated that Britain requires £1.4 trillion of investment to fund its transition to net zero by 2050 , but in the recent budget, the government has announced plans to tax excess profits at a rate of 45% of some renewable energy companies who have been the recipients of past public support to induce investment to raise generating capacity. According to the statement by Jeremy Hunt justifying the decision: “The structure of our energy markets creates windfall profits for low-carbon electricity generation. “

In this paper we argue that the United Kingdom is evolving from a hierarchical vertical linear electricity system to a decentralised complex system. However, as the electricity system’s structural complexity increased, there has been no attempt to modify a broken regulatory system where the politically sensitive price-capped retail price for energy is based on distorted national wholesale prices which no longer reflect actual local market supply or demand conditions for electricity nor provide the correct market signals necessary to attract investment to meet net-zero targets.

Sky News reports that batteries will become increasingly important to the energy grid as the UK transitions to green energy. Power storage will also become more critical as our electric demand increases.

It is popular to blame the invasion of Ukraine on rising energy inflation, particularly oil and gas prices, but there are sound structural reasons why the cost of generating electricity from these sources will continue to rise globally in the coming years.

The EnviroTech team were incredibly honoured to receive the much-coveted 'most innovative energy project' award for their EnviroTech Energy Station, which helps reduce energy cost while providing security of supply.

The Guardian Newspaper reports there is a greater risk of blackouts owing to the closure of coal plants and nuclear reactors.

The installation of an innovative “Energy Station” is helping GRAHAM to reduce its carbon footprint and manage power demands more efficiently at Eton College.

Government policy needs to focus on enabling the private private-sector to invest heavily in the green industries of the future such as clean technologies for heating homes and institutions, for the expansion of electric vehicles, expanding renewable energy’s role in transmission and building battery storage capacity to balance the distribution of energy in the aftermath of the corona virus crisis.

Local authorities across the country are leading the way in making progress towards the government’s Net Zero target. The important, and potentially profitable, role in delivering green energy is being seized by forward thinking Country Councils in West Sussex and Suffolk in the South of England.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has stated it will bring forward secondary legislation to exempt all size storage facilities (except pumped hydro) from the national planning regime in England.

Transforming the British economy to achieve Net Zero by 2050 will need the spending of billions of pounds in new investment on a green infrastructure.

Today’s progress report – meant to assess the government’s annual progress against climate targets – is unlike any other that precedes it.

The expected rate of return on battery storage facilities is rising sharply as demand is far outpacing supply. In the short-term the imbalances stemming from the fall off in the demand for electricity stemming from the COVID-19 induced downturn in economic activity is pushing up the utilisation of off grid batteries.

Envirotech Energy Solutions has put measures in place to help protect its team, investors, and clients during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Even though our London offices are currently closed, it’s still very much business as usual!

New data just published by BloombergNEF illustrates that the achievable levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) for battery energy storage means that “new-build batteries can be competitive on cost with gas peaker plants.”

The Committee on Climate Change, CCC, the statutory body set up in 2008 to provide independent advice to the nations of the United Kingdom on tackling climate change, has written a letter to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, cced to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, stressing that a green recovery must be a fundamental part of rebuilding the nation following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has produced a report 'Greening the Recovery' urging government fiscal policy makers to “green” their response to the current economic crisis caused by the corona virus pandemic.

The Bank of England is missing out on a crucial opportunity to nudge the British economy further in a green direction through its asset purchasing scheme for corporate bonds.

The importance of the role which energy storage can play in providing energy security across the power delivery network, has been brought home as households and those business and institutions still operating in Britain are threatened by the risk of power blackouts as a result of the corona virus pandemic.

Renewable energy is not just the means by which humanity will deal with the existential threat of climate change.