Truth of the matter – from the marvelous Electrical Review Gossage Column.
There has been much ribald laughter at the expense of the energy regulator, from the moment it published its grandiose ‘Discovery’ set of five scenarios for the next decade. Each of which admits the existing electricity system simply isn’t working.
Ever since electricity privatisation over 20 years ago, the regulator (then Offer, now Ofgem) has been the official cheerleader for the joys of total liberalisation. The philosophy was always that the untrammelled marketplace would deliver the most efficient services for everybody. Instead the converse is now admitted to be true.
Of course, Ofgem doesn’t quite put it like that in the commentary it provides. Allow me to provide the true interpretation:
Ofgem; “There is a need for unprecedented levels of investment to be sustained over many years in difficult financial conditions, and against a background of increased risk and uncertainty.”
Gossage: “We have let the fat cats and their shareholders take far too many dividend rises and bonuses, rather than investing in the infrastructure required to handle North Sea depletion”
Ofgem: “Short term price signals at times of system stress do not fully reflect the value that customers place on supply security, which may mean the incentives to make additional peak energy supplies available and to invest in peaking capacity are not enough”.
Gossage: “We have been using completely foolish regulatory criteria, sending precisely the wrong signals to the energy companies.”
Ofgem: “The higher costs of gas and electricity mean increasing numbers of customers are not able to afford adequate levels of energy.”
Gossage: “Our doctrinaire policies have been the cause of record numbers of households in fuel poverty. We’re panicking - the public will realise this, and want to string us all up from the nearest (unlit) street light”.
New breed of traders
My more devoted readers will have realised, on the whole, I think being part of the European Union is rather a good thing. I am therefore congenitally disinclined to pay much attention to the ranting of Europhobe organisations like Open Europe. However when they provide some useful insights which play to another of my prejudices, I am prepared to give them house room.
They have issued a study which analyses the impact of the EU emissions trading scheme. Courtesy of the trenchant words of the powerful House of Commons environmental audit committee, we all know the price of the permits has fallen through the floor – partly due to recession, mostly the over-generous supply of permits by European governments. This has been of very little benefit to the environment, as electricity companies aren’t motivated to switch to low carbon generation. And other participants in heavy industry aren’t motivated to use the electricity they buy even more efficiently.
But there is one sector benefiting from the trading scheme in a big way, says Open Europe. And those are the emission trading exchanges, through which all the permit trading goes. The two largest are called Bluenext and the European Climate Exchange. Never heard of them? Think they are just entrepreneurial start-ups? Think again.
These entities include members like Barclays, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch. The very breed of banking folk who brought us the present recession. Who between them last year earned a combined average of €250,000 a day, just in transaction fees from the trading of carbon permits.
“Instead of producing a firm carbon price to encourage investment in greener technologies, the emissions trading scheme has become a subsidy to some of the biggest polluters, and has simply created a new breed of carbon traders, which are cashing in on a policy that is failing to achieve its core objective”, thunder Open Europe. I have to admit. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
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This is the provisional programme for the conference and we are still looking for more speakers.
Nearer the time, we will organise the event into several themes. If you want to offer a paper, please contact the organisers or use the email or comment box below:
- Mark Duffield, National Grid – use of diesels and other small generators to assist NGrid – typical values and quantities
- Jeremy Harrison, EON – the scope for micro-generation in UK and Europe
- Dr David Elliot, Emeritus Professor of Technology Policy at the Open University, where he focused on renewable energy policy, editor of Renew, a journal on renewable energy developments and policies: www.natta-renew.org.- ‘Independent Small Scale Renewable Power – the Future ‘.
- Oliver Tickell, Oxford Climate Associates. Writer and consultant on energy and climate policy. “Heat pumps or money pumps? Are heat pumps a good way to spend £21 billion of public funds?
- Eur. Ing. Dr Peter McKendry, Principal, SLR Consulting Ltd “The role of the professional consultancy business in preventing disasters in Indpendant Power Projects”
- Kerstin Cristina – Turboden, ” ORC Units: a Well Proven Industrial Solution for Application in Small Decentralized Biomass Plants Description of Example Cases”.
- Richard Hughes-Lewis of NAPIT to deliver a 30 minutes talk (every day) on the following important subjects:
- MICROGENERATION: Implications for Electrical Contractors moving into the Microgeneration sphere (wind, photovoltaic, biomass)
- UK BUILDING REGS – providing energy systems for homes & businesses – updates on the issues behind UK Building Regulations and form filling involved with systems, cabling and structures etc…
- Suchita Kala, Sergi Holdings – Transformer Protection – preventing explosions in transformer power stations. During a transformer short-circuit, a TRANSFORMER PROTECTOR (TP) can be activated within milliseconds by the first dynamic pressure peak of the shock wave, avoiding transformer explosions before static pressure increases. The paper looks at the issues and technology and incident history behind this.
- Dr David Toke – Birmingham University – government policy issues with small scale generation
- (45 more speakers)
- Read More→
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If you are interested in this sort of thing, check this out – pictures of an enormous marine diesel engine.
Pictures at: http://www.claverton-energy.com/?dl_id=404
Maximum power: 108,920 hp at 102 rpm – abot 80 MW at 102 rpm
( A locomotive engine might be 3 Mw at 1500 rpm) Read More→
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Believe it or not there are specialists who know about why engines fail and who are hired by disgruntled purchasers, insurance loss adjusters, and often disgruntled engine suppliers.
Engines can cost up to £40million for a large marine engine, or £1/2 million for a typical 1MWe gas engine chp unit, so when these fail it is worth finding out why.
Engines rarely fail due to inherent defects in the design or manufacture, though this is far from unknown – more often it is due to:
- Mis-installation
- Mal-operation
- Lack of maintenance
- Not being used for the duty intended.
When things go wrong users may need to call in the engine specialist. Here is a typical one: Read More→
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Insight Inspection (UK) Ltd – Who Are We?
Reciprocating engines, gas or diesel benefit from a range of specialist services to keep maintenance costs down, and to predict and forestall breakdown or failure and to assess engine condition for example when purchasing a second hand engine.
A small, newly formed Company, based in the UK, we offer a diverse range of services including Lube Oil Management, Visual Inspection & Fuel Gas Testing on a wide variety of mechanical plant.
We do however specialise in rotating equipment, and draw on hands-on experience gained during an involvement of nearly 25 years within the UK Power Industry, particularly Gas Engines fuelled with aggressive fuels such as Landfill and Sewage gas.
To read more take a look at the document here.
Popularity: 2% [?]
