Families are being urged not to despair in the face of soaring energy costs in the Uk, which are expected to top £1,000 a year by taking steps to slash their fuel bills by a fifth.
EDF Energy has become the latest energy supplier to increase its prices. It said it “regrets“ its decision to raise prices by 7.9 percent for electricity and 12.9 percent for gas which come into effect.
Earlier this month, npower increased its gas charges by an average of 17 percent and by almost 13 percent for electricity for its 4.1 million customers. Speculation is rife that more energy providers will follow suit in the months ahead, Telegraph.co.uk reported.
The price hikes come at a dismal time for families as they cope with hefty mortgage payments, rising food bills and record petrol costs.
Allan Asher, energywatch chief executive, said: “That consumers have been told to expect more price rises does not make this news any easier to swallow. The underlying causes of spiraling consumer prices are a wholesale market that punishes UK consumers and a supply market that seems unconstrained by a competitive market from passing these costs on to the consumers. Even a summit between the Chancellor and the regulator seems no reason to draw breath.“
Ofgem, the energy regulator said that in Britain’s competitive market some suppliers will be better at buying their wholesale energy than others and will be able to price at an advantage to their competitors.
An Ofgem spokesman said: “Over the last five years we have seen this happen and companies with high prices have been punished severely by customers. Around 50 percent of Britain’s gas and electricity customers have now switched supplier and switching is set to continue at record levels.“
More consumers could now pay higher bills depending on where you live as gas providers begin to introduce regional pricing. For example, customers in the Midlands and London will be hit hardest by npower’s latest rises. Householders in the capital face a 23 percent rise, taking their gas bills from £532 a year to £653.
Customers in the East Midlands have suffered the same increase, compared to an increase of 14 percent for npower’s Scottish customers. This means a customer in London or the East Midlands will pay £43 more for gas than in the cheapest area.
Experts reckon savings of £200 can be made by a family of four, living in a three-bedroom house, just by switching to a cheaper deal for their gas and electricity.
Tim Wolfenden, head of home services at uSwitch, said: “Those who have never switched before and are sitting on an uncompetitive standard plan have the most to gain and should switch straight away.“
The example used above is based on a family of four living in a house in London, which has never previously switched their energy provider.
The family was on the standard tariff offered by British Gas for their gas and the standard tariff from EDF for their electricity. The saving is based on them switching to a dual-fuel tariff from British Gas called British Gas Click Energy, which is an online offering.
If a household has never switched before, they would always be with British Gas for their gas, but the incumbent electricity supplier depends on the area of the country. The deregulation of the gas and electricity markets has meant customers can switch suppliers and are not forced to buy from the regional supplier of electricity in their area and gas from British Gas.
You can change your gas or electricity supplier by simply signing a form from the new provider, who will then sort out everything on your behalf. It is wise to take your own meter reading on the day that you switch your supplier just in case you do not agree with the final bill from the old supplier.
If you are worried that prices will continue to go up, you might want to consider fixed price deals. However, such deals have diminished in recent years.
Paul Ward at BoilerJuice, an independent website enabling the UK’s 1.5 million oil users to offset the cost of rising prices by forming a ’buying community’, said: “Fluctuating fuel costs are no excuse for ripping off energy customers.
“The heating oil industry has to deal with this issue every day, where prices are rising and users aren’t tied into contracts.
“But while energy suppliers get hotheaded over prices, the UK’s 1.5 million oil users receive a much better deal. Hundreds of suppliers compete on price, leaving consumers free to choose and alternate between suppliers. The only way for oil suppliers to survive is to undercut competitors and keep their prices low.
“In light of this, there is no excuse for energy suppliers’ anti-competitive behaviour--and those involved should be summoned before the Competition Commission. It’s up to the Government to fuel healthy competition, and about time they turned the heat up on the rest of the energy industry.“

The world has become more carbon constrained and the EU more concerned about energy security.

Multi-billion dollar renewable energy enterprises seem to have sprung up full-blown practically overnight, providing investment bankers, venture capitalists and financiers with their latest moveable feast.
Wind power projects and companies were among the first to attract serious attention and capital. While solar and biofuels have likewise come to the fore, wind power investment continues to grow at a healthy clip, constrained more by a lack of key materials than by lack of capital, opportunity, industry or even political will, Enn.com reported.
Take Airtricity Holdings, for instance. Just four years after beginning to develop wind power projects in North America, signed off on a deal to sell the business to German utility E.ON for $1.4 billion in order to concentrate on its European business. Less than three months later, early this month, management decided its best course of action was to sell that business, for something like $3.59 billion, to Scottish & Southern Energy, which itself recently moved into the Number 2 spot as a producer and distributor of electricity and natural gas in the UK.
Based in Dublin, Airtricity has quickly built up a continent-spanning operation as both a “green“ electricity generator and supplier. The company employed close to 400 employees and generated annual revenue of $346.76 million in 2006.
Prior to selling its North American and European businesses, it was operating 16 wind farms with more than 500 megawatts (MW) installed generating capacity in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the US Another nine wind farms totaling nearly 600 MW are under construction. In total, its project development pipeline totaled nearly 17,000 MW in terms of generating capacity.
Airtricity North America began getting involved in the development of wind power projects in 2003. The company has offices and employs more than 80 people in Austin, Chicago and Toronto. It is active in nine US states, primarily in Texas and the Northeast, and is developing a pipeline in Canada.
As of year-end 2007, its US wind farms had a total installed capacity of some 210 megawatts (MW), with an additional 880 MW due to come on-line by the end of this year. Looking out over the longer term, the company has projects totaling 1,000 MW of capacity in advanced stages of development across the US and Canada. Another potential 5,000 MW worth of projects are in early stages of development.
Sizable, established and still fast-growing renewable energy companies such as Airtricity are prime acquisitions for more larger, more established electricity and energy companies, certainly in the EU and also in the US. Aiming to address twin problems of energy security and climate change, the EU government and those of individual member states are setting up to increase the renewable energy requirements they have already imposed. Similarly, the number of states that have passed, or are considering the imposition of renewable power standards (RPS) continues to grow.
With approximately 880 MW gross capacity--a 653 MW net equity ownership--spread across the UK, Germany, the Nordic region and the Iberian Peninsula, E.ON, based in Dusseldorf, was a major league wind farm operator in its own right even before acquiring Airtricity North America. The majority of its existing capacity is onshore, but it has pioneered off-shore wind projects in the UK and Nordic region. Acquiring Airtricity North America fits right into management’s expansion plan, which aims to increase the company’s wind power capacity to 2.6 GW by year-end 2011.
UK Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform John Hutton in November announced a proposition to open up UK waters to as much as 33 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy, more than trebling the 8 GW already being planned. Thirty-three gigawatts would be enough to supply electricity demand for every home in the UK, as well as go a long way towards meeting EU targets of generating 20 percent of energy supply from renewable sources by 2020, Airtricity management--applauding the plan--noted in a media release.
Reason enough, but by no means the sole reason behind fast-growing Scottish & Southern Energy’s (SSE) decision to acquire Airtricity’s European business. “Seven major public policy developments took place during 2007 alone, all of which point towards a material step-change in the amount of renewable energy that will be required in the future. The range of investment opportunities now available to SSE in renewables will become increasingly important as the world becomes more carbon constrained and the EU becomes more concerned about energy security. Demand for renewable energy is only going to go up,“? SSE chief executive Ian Marchant stated in a media release.

Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant, Taiwan.

Following a resounding victory for Taiwan’s pro-nuclear opposition party, record oil prices and concerns over a possible power deficit, Taipei is reopening the debate over potential expansion of its nuclear capacity.
The victory by the Nationalist Party (KMT) in recent parliamentary elections, in which it won 72 percent of the seats, has strengthened its bid to recapture the presidency in the March 22 poll and with it the power to determine energy policy, Reuters said.
Resource-poor Taiwan, which relies on imports to meet virtually all of its energy needs, has three aging nuclear power plants that account for just over 11 percent of its power generation capacity.
Construction of a fourth plant is ongoing, but delays due to a temporary suspension of the project by the anti-nuclear Democratic Progressive Party in 2000 after winning power, will delay its completion to as late as 2012 from the target of 2009. Some analysts say that could lead to an electricity shortfall.
The DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) came to power advocating a nuclear-free policy, and in the past eight years of its rule has shown little sign of altering its position, even though nuclear plants would support another of its goals, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, it may have to add more privately run coal-fired plants.
“There are some political considerations, and it depends on the election,“ said David Yao, director of the Atomic Energy Council’s planning department. “But because of global warming, maybe we will think differently later on, as many governments are reconsidering application of nuclear energy.“
The council is responsible for overseeing nuclear power safety and issuing licenses to operate nuclear power plants.
Vincent Siew, the vice presidential candidate for the Nationalist Party, which established the island’s nuclear power system during its over 50-year rule that ended in 2000, has said he would push for more nuclear power in the face of record oil prices, which topped $100 a barrel in early January.
Sources within industry and the state-run utility Taiwan Power Co, which supplies the bulk of the island’s power and operates the three nuclear plants, are also saying that expansion of nuclear power generation capacity must be reconsidered to meet demand.
While no one is yet talking about building a fifth nuclear plant, each of Taipower’s three operational nuclear plants and a fourth plant, have space to add additional units, according to energy officials.
Nuclear plants one and two could each add two additional units, while three and four could add four more each, according to Taipower, increasing the total number of nuclear power units on the island to 20 from six.
If all those units were built with an average of 1,000 megawatts each, they could increase the island’s total installed capacity by up to a third.
The need for additional generating capacity is critical, say industry officials.
Delays in upgrading old power stations, the construction of new plants and additional sub-stations due to opposition from local residents could push the island’s power reserve ratio margin to between 10-12 percent after 2010, from around 16 percent now.
Around 16 percent is considered sufficient to handle peak loads and reduced supply in case of accidents or maintenance, which could lead to blackouts.
Currently the energy bureau has no plans to formally reconsider nuclear power, said Wang Yunn-ming, deputy director of the bureau, while noting it was staying abreast of a growing global trend of re-evaluating nuclear power.
“While the energy bureau is watching developments in other countries to keep up to date, we continue to follow the government’s policy,“ said Wang.