How HeatingSave Helps Businesses | Page 22

A second big energy supplier has hinted that gas and electricity prices may rise steeply this year. Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) said its household gas business had been losing money, with a 25 per cent rise in wholesale prices last year outgaining December’s 9% rise. SSE warned that wholesale gas and electricity prices for the coming year had gone up since then by as much as 33%.

Scottish Power will raise the cost of gas by 19 per cent and the cost of electricity by 10% from August 1. Affected customers will see an average daily rise to a dual fuel energy bill of 48p per day. The company said the move reflected sustained increases in the wholesale energy market, and more energy companies are expected to follow suit. Scottish Power last put its prices up in November, when gas prices increased 2% and electricity bills 8.9%.

This week the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high last year. “Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates,” the IEA said in a statement. Emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record five percent jump from the previous record year in 2008, when levels reached 29.3 gigatonnes, the IEA added.

Consumers are being urged to implement green home improvements and waste less energy as a means of avoiding imminent expensive energy bills. “The Green Deal will help householders upgrade their homes to waste less energy, and our electricity market reforms will bring on investment in clean energy sources that are not vulnerable to global price shocks,” said energy secretary Chris Huhne.

The solar industry is disputing claims on the comparative cost of solar and nuclear power. A report from the recent parliamentary Climate Change Committee backed new nuclear as the cheapest option for the green power the UK needs to hit its carbon-reduction targets. Solar firms disagree, claiming that solar costs should be compared with retail prices, due to the scale of the technology. The industry has taken its fight over plans to slash the feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme to the House of Lords.

Some of UK’s largest energy suppliers seem to be going through some tough times in terms of profits, while others, such as E.ON, are actually faring quite well, a new media report has revealed.

The latest round of above-inflation energy increases in energy bills will by no means be the last, the Whitehall’s spending watchdog warning that this year-to-year process is likely to continue for the next 17 years.

Implementing extensive energy efficiency measures across all buildings, whether old or new, is likely to become a must over the next years, as energy prices continue to grow year-to-year, an industry expert has warned during a speech at the Energy Live 2013 event.

Britain’s largest energy companies have been cleared of all charges related to the alleged price manipulation in the UK wholesale gas market after an investigation by energy regulator Ofgem and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found no compelling evidence to support the accusations.

Extensive research done under the Energy Efficiency Financing (EEF) scheme has revealed that the industrial sector in the UK is overspending on energy by more than £2.2 billion per year.

Despite pushing up their energy bills and claiming that they’re forced to do so in order to keep them afloat, the truth of the matter is that the UK’s Big Six energy suppliers have recorded some pretty hefty profits back in 2012, up by 75% compared to the previous year, a media news report has revealed.

Government should extend the Green Deal programme to small and medium enterprises and the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) should offer low interest loans to these small companies in order to promote energy efficiency, a new