03.02.22 newsletter
Another week has flown by with plenty of energy and net zero stories still dominating the news. Here are some the stories that caught our eye:
Consumer bills
Government is expected to announce a taxpayer funded loan scheme which will see a £200 rebate applied to our home energy bills when the expected April price hike goes live. But we will be paying this back with interest over time, with our bills to remain higher when prices drop.
Good idea? Proposed by Octopus Energy but not what British Gas and others wanted.
And it’s not just energy bills, Boris Johnson’s plans to reach net zero by 2050 are forecast to cost at least £1 trillion. While it’s not clear exactly how these costs are going to be distributed, higher taxes and consumer prices are likely to contribute to the total sum.
But there are ways within your control to bring your energy bills down! Not just our Paid to Save campaign, but if you have solar panels, Octopus Energy has increased what it pays for solar exports by a whopping 36%! It now pays its Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) (export only customers) 4.1p/kWh, up from 3p/kWh, whilst its Fixed Outgoing Octopus tariff has increased from 5.5p/kWh to 7.5p/kWh. This is currently the highest in the market.
For those without solar, Paid to Save and other energy efficiency measures are picking up momentum, with 1 in 5 households already having cut back gas usage.
Which is just as well, given volatile energy prices are expected to stay for the next decade!
Net zero
Will the EU compromise funding intended to stimulate investment into building more green gas generation infrastructure, by allowing the likes of Russia to claim funding for traditional CO2 emitting natural gas? Reported as a “green gift to Putin”, this could be a blow to the net zero transition, with gas already “the achilles heel of the European energy transition.”
A super-majority of 20 EU countries - out of the total 27 - or a majority of European Parliament's 700 lawmakers could veto the final rules, proposed above, during a four-month scrutiny period once they are published. So far, only 4 countries are objecting, including Austria and Luxembourg.
How realistic as green hydrogen to form a significant part of our net zero grid fuel mix? Hopes that the cost would reduce, are being questioned.
We will announce more once the government price cap review is confirmed.
