Im sure that you are all too aware of the feeling you get sometimes: “i wish id thought of doing that!” – well, this sensation washed over me quickly this week when i came across this great illustration from US website Power and Energy.

Essentially, it encapsulates in one tidy design the questions regarding Wind Energy, the generation of which has been risen rapidly in the USA over the past two years. Although the statistics are all related to North America (and New York state in particular), the questions posed still hold relevance worldwide.

With scottish power suppliers and the government in this country pushing Wind Energy as THE answer to our energy needs, perhaps it would help them to consider this graph.

Is wind energy the answer?

Excellent news for Glasgow yesterday that Scottish and Southern Energy had agreed to join with The University of Strathclyde (renowned for wind power research) in Glasgow to create a new Centre of Engineering Excellence for Renewable Energy (CEERE). The new facility will primarily become a new a new research and management centre for wind farm projects.

SSE Manging Director Ian Marchant:

“Our Centre of Excellence which will be known as CEERE will play a crucial part in helping SSE to realise its renewable energy goals in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, helping to secure energy supplies and contributing to the development of a lower carbon economy.

“Having considered all of the options in mainland Europe, Ireland and the UK, we have settled on Glasgow as the best location for CEERE, and the city’s own sustainable energy ambitions also make it a very appropriate choice.

“Working with the University of Strathclyde, and with the support of the Scottish Government, we will create and secure several hundred skilled jobs for Scotland.

“Scotland’s ambition to become a leader in renewable energy is well known and we are delighted to be making this investment in Scotland. We’re very positive about the prospects for creating new jobs to harness Europe’s renewable energy resources and the potential make a significant contribution to the achievement of Scotland’s ambitions.”

Strathclyde University Principal (and Professor) Jim McDonald said:

“If we are to address the challenges of climate change, rapid and widespread deployment of renewable energy technologies is critical.

“The new partnership reflects Scotland’s potential to be at the forefront of the UK and European renewable energy sectors, creating new jobs and research and development opportunities.”

The Scottish Government is investing £2.8m into the scheme, First Minister Alex Salmond spoke on the new energy centre yesterday.

Good news for Glasgow and Scotland – this is a considerable commitment to the green economy and hopefully another step on the way for Scotland to become a true renewable energy hub.

10:10 - Can you take 10% of your carbon emissions?

Homes and Businesses urged to cut their carbon emissions by 10%

A new initiative by the people behind The Age of Stupid has been launched last week with the aim of getting as many homes, schools, universities, business and everything in-between to sign up and commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 (hence the 10:10). Four of the ‘big 6′ of major UK energy companies have signed up (Centria, EDF, E.ON and Scottish and Southern) already, and are pledging to introduce measures to assist homes and businesses meet this target in 2010, including energy use tracking equipment.

It’s not only large companies who are signing up though, a whole host of other organisations have already pledged their support, whilst individual members of the public can enroll themselves.

You can find out more information of the project on the 10:10 website.

Scottish European Green Energy Centre (SEGEC) Launches

In what was probably a moment of ‘calm before the storm’ for Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond (before the Megrahi Announcement), last week he opened The Scottish European Green Energy Centre at the University of Aberdeen.

With joint-funding coming from a £1.6 million investment from the European Regional Development Fund, and a further £1 Million from the Scottish Government the centre has the none-too-difficult task of establishing the Granite City as a research hub into wave, tidal and wind power. SEGEC’s primary focus will be on marine energy, offshore wind, long-distance super-grid development and smart distribution grids, carbon capture and storage, renewable heat and energy efficiency.

According to the official Press Release from the Scottish Government:

“It aims to help the Scottish green energy sector secure maximum benefits from engagement with Europe through developing partnerships with businesses and institutions, designing collaborative projects and identifying and accessing European funding.”

One of the partner companies is Scottish and Southern Energy, their Chief Exec Ian Marchant explained their involvment:

“The Scottish European Green Energy Centre is another important step in the realisation of Scotland’s renewable energy ambitions, which SSE is pleased to support. The key is developing and deploying the technologies that can harness Scotland’s remarkable green energy resources, and this new Centre will provide a key means of doing this, involving industry, government and universities here and elsewhere in Europe. It is the kind of initiative that has to be taken and has to succeed if challenging targets for renewable energy in 2020 and beyond are to be met.”

Speaking at the launch, Mr Salmond said:

“The Scottish European Green Energy Centre (SEGEC) aims to build on Aberdeen’s long-established global reputation as an energy hub by positioning Scotland at the forefront of European innovation, research and development in clean, renewable energy.

“The investment of European funding will embrace the energy-related opportunities presented through Scotland’s leading global effort to reduce climate change. Scotland’s natural capital can create tens of thousands of green jobs.”

Here is the official launch video:

Some questions on SEGEC

Obviously, any establishment which aims to promote green scottish power is to be welcomed. However, we have a few questions that you can possibly help us to answer:

• Is Aberdeen a feasible location to become Scotlands Green Energy hub?
• Will we (the energy buying public) see any direct benefits from any of these projects? or
• Are these purely academic exercises?
• Will the rest of Europe be willing to invest in Scottish Green Energy schemes?
• If the Scottish Government is serious about green energy supply, then is £1 million a large enough investment?
• Will all the partner energy companies be willing to adapt to any recommended changes in practice?

If anyone has any thoughts on these please leave a comment!

This is the question that we must ask ourselves in the light of the latest suggestions from regulator OFGEM that the Direct Debit energy bills supplied must be more accurate in the future, and provide a detailed breakdown of what exactly you are paying for with your energy bills (BBC News). There has been complaints from consumer groups for a number of years that energy firms have been setting their direct debit rates too high. OFGEM concluded that it could find no evidence that this was the case, but we will be checking our bills anyway and would suggest that you do the same.

Who are we paying?

Whilst pondering your bill it also may be worth considering exactly WHO you are paying – as most of the UK energy firms are owned by foreign comapanies (how many UK energy consumers are aware of this?, perhaps something OFGEM could research in the future…..)

• Scottish and Southern Energy – Has been based in Perth, Scotland since its inception in 1998
• E.ON – Took over Powergen in 2002 – German-based.
• NPower – Parent company in German behemoth RWE
• Électricité de France (EDF) – Produced 22% of 2003 EU Electricity, 74.5% of which was from Nuclear Power.
• Scottish Power – Under control of Spanish utilities firm Iberdola
• British Gas – Centrica ltd took over the British Gas name in the UK

Quite alot of factors to ponder then when analysing whether you are getting cheaper gas and electricity.

UK Tender Negotiating Issues

Energy Tendering Process

Over the last couple of years the dramatic inflation of wholesale UK energy prices is making businesses re-evaluate their latest procurement arrangements. With the uncertainty in the global market and economy the energy companies are taking a step into the unknown in regards to gauging future gas and electricity tendering energy procurement contracts.

The market:

It has been widely reported that more than halve of all energy companies are paying over the odds for their utilities due to many reasons, One of the major scenarios of this is because there is no certainty about costs, contracts and price formatting from major suppliers. Another reason as to why various businesses are paying over the odds is due to the confusion of supply contracts being terminated. This results in companies having to pay excessive charges.

Once again companies will have to rely on the government to clarify what’s what when it comes to negotiating energy supplies into the UK from foreign countries.

There are calls today from the CBI for a review into the current UK energy policy. They claim that wind power is playing far too prominent a role in the UK energy mix, and that nuclear energy should be utilised far more extensively in future UK energy delivery.

We have serious doubts as to this point of view (too much wind?), what are your thoughts on this issue?

Please have your say in our poll……………

Alternative Green Gas and Electricity Resources

Energy Flying kite

Knowing that oil reserves are fast running out it seems that the penny has finally dropped with leaders of the world who are now scrambling around for alternative energy resources. With the practical ideas like wind farms and hydro damns leading the way there is a lot of impractical and odd ideas flirting around with investors who think that some of these ideas might just be the way forward in the future. One of these wacky ideas is kites flying above New York City utilizing the near constant wind power that swirls around the state. This is just one of the wacky ideas and not only is these designs meant to reduce our carbon footprint; they are also being designed so that residents can benefit from greener and cheaper energy and could see the price of their utility bill fall, Cheap Gas and Electricity bills all year round for all.

Scientist have done some research into this and the plan is to capture high altitude winds that if done properly could supply the world’s energy needs 100 times over. The research suggests that the best places on earth to harvest high altitude wind power would be the eastern United States and East Asia.

A lot of questions still need to be answered on this alternative energy source, one popular question being is how will it affect air travel when there is massive kites flying at 30,000ft? Although this sounds like something from a Sci-Fi film it is actually being seriously looked at and a lot of investment has already went into researching this idea!

Think back to what you were doing at the age of 15 ………… if you’re anything like us then you were at High School, struggling to grasp basic scientific and mathematical concepts, maybe playing some sports after school and at the weekend………

We’re willing to bet that you probably weren’t inventing in a complete Algae based green energy system.

Well, that’s what young Javier Fernández-Han from Houston, Texas has done. He won the Ashoka ‘Invent Your World Challenge’ with his algae energy system, named VERSATILE. Master Javier’s system incorporates 12 technologies in six subsystems. Each system can treat waste, produce methane and bio-fuel, and is a source of livestock and human food production. It also produces oxygen and sequesters greenhouse gases, and can also be a source of income.

Read the full details of Javiers amazing system over at Cleantechnica.

Here is a slide show featuring Javier and some of the other winners from the Ashoka challenge.

Inspirational stuff, we think you’ll agree…………

Ecotricity Award

Europe’s largest ever green electricity business “Ecotricity” has won a well deserved environmental achievement award.  The company set up in 1996 in Gloucestershire founded the green electricity market. Firstly set up to provide market places with environmental friendly electricity by Dale Vince.

Later on in 2009 Ecotricity will be rolled out to domestic customers who can join in on the environmentally friendly energy with some such company’s such as Thames Water, The Millennium Dome and The co-Operative bank.

In the last four years Ecotricity has went from a turnover of around £13000 to £50,000,000, most people are led to believe that many green electricity products and services are more costly and in many cases they are, but here at Ecotricity we succeed in challenging this issue.