We’ve got the power: Decarbonising our transport on the road to a greener nation February 21, 2020 The government will soon publish its strategy on cutting emissions from cars, trains, boats and planes — and already the transport secretary has suggested that sales of combustion and hybrid vehicles could be banned from 2035. Change comes with questions. For example: how clean is our electricity? And can Britain’s energy infrastructure meet the demand [...]
Put your money where your morals are: ethical ideas for ESG investing February 12, 2020 Whether or not you agree with activists like Greta Thunberg or campaign groups like Extinction Rebellion, there’s been a clear societal shift in recent years to recognise the need to tackle problems like climate change or global poverty. One aspect of that shift is the increasing trend for savers to consider the environmental, social, and governance [...]
Wind turbines: UK must double 2010s spend to hit energy target February 10, 2020 The UK government will need to spend £48bn on installing new wind turbines, double what it spend last decade, if it is to reach its target of 40 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030. According to renewable energy analysts Aurora, in order to fulfil the goal, 260 wind turbines will have to be installed [...]
Octopus limits losses as customer base triples January 25, 2020 Challenger energy supplier Octopus more than tripled its customer base in the last financial year, growing from 199,000 to 691,000 households by April 2019. The company, which now has over 1.4m customers, also increased its revenue by 256 per cent to £460m in the same period, today’s annual results showed. Notably, considering its rapid growth, [...]
Inside the firms taking on the Big Six – and winning January 13, 2020 There’s a palpable buzz to Octopus Energy’s Soho headquarters, which hits you as you walk through the door. It’s a world away from what one imagines when one thinks of an energy firm, chief executive Greg Jackson agrees. But Octopus is one of several companies showing the UK’s Big Six that there is another way [...]
Revealed: The 10 fastest growing UK scale-ups of 2019 December 10, 2019 Renewable energy provider Bulb has won the top spot on a list of the fastest growing UK scale-ups thanks to a surge in value over the last three years. The energy provider, which has acquired 1.5m members since it was set up in 2015, has increased its valuation by 318 times since 2016, according to [...]
Drax aims to be world’s first carbon negative company by 2030 December 10, 2019 Drax, the UK power generation company, will this morning become the world’s first company to announce its ambition to become carbon negative by 2030. Chief executive Will Gardiner will tell the Madrid climate conference that scaled-up deployment of new technology like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (Beccs) will enable Drax to remove more carbon [...]
UN climate change summit opens in Madrid amid last chance warnings December 2, 2019 The UN Climate Change conference is underway in Madrid, as governments come together to take the next steps in the climate change process. Against a backdrop of a year of especially severe weather, the two weeks of talks offer delegates the chance to resolve outstanding issues from the Paris accord, such as rules for carbon [...]
Global emissions must be cut 7.6 per cent a year to meet Paris targets November 26, 2019 Unless greenhouse gas emissions fall 7.6 per cent each year for the next decade, the world will miss its chance to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees celsius. A new report from the United Nations environment programme (Unep) finds that on current pledges, the world is heading for a 3.2 degree rise. Read [...]
Renewables set to make up half of the UK’s electricity production by 2025 November 19, 2019 Renewables are expected to contribute 50 per cent to Britain’s electricity production by 2025, the highest share of any big European market excluding hydro, according to a new report from Moody’s. The rapid decarbonisation has been led by a combination of falling wind power prices and the dramatic decline of coal-fired generation. Read more: UK [...]