Has anyone read or heard any commentary from the big six (Centrica, Eon, EDF, Npower, Scottish & Southern and Scottish Power) energy companies about their stand on the latest FiTs review?
A reliable source from within one of the “majors” has informed me that they have been quietly, but determinedly lobbying Whitehall/Downing Street for months about reducing FiTs for large scale solar/PV in the UK.
In fact there are teams of people within all the big six whose sole reasonability is to “work” aka “lobby” central government over regulatory affairs. What part have they played in the government’s last move toward cutting FiTs for large scale Solar/PV?
The Big six have been against FiTs and certainly the level of FiTs for large scale PV from the start and now their “power” (pun-intended) is clearly demonstrated through the puppetry of the coalition government.
I guess if I was in a cartel I would NOT want hundreds of power producers muscling in on my action either!
Don’t shot the messenger.
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This is all no wonder. In Germany, where the FiT actually started. We have only big four energy cartels: Eon, REW, Vattenfall and EnBW. They were clever enough, to actually write the FiT *law* in Germany themselves. As a strong lobby group, you have all chances. You only have to take them, if the parliament lets you…which was the case in my home country at that time…
I guess the problem in the UK is that no ones actually knows how the Big 6 have influenced FiTs – at least in Germany because they “wrote” the law you know where they stand. Maybe that is why it has worked so well?
I wonder what influences the other big energy companies have had around Europe on the FiTs changes of late?
France – FiTs on hold – I’m sure EDF had a major play in that! Spain? etc etc
Indications are the 50% of the French allocation of FIT for solar electricity generation is to be reserved for EDF.
Surely this policy is in breach of multiple EU regulations and in direct conflict with market competition laws.
The article is interesting but could be extended.
Let’s try the following.
Obvious but: energy companies are in business to sell energy. They own their own sources of energy production and thus staying in business means retaining control of energy production and the maximum number of customers.
There is some “structured” competition between the ECs., the example of British Gas and its monthly self reading plus Alertme meter plus the potential to save 12% of energy for a given consumer will allow it to pull customers from other companies. However, actions such as these do not threaten the long term viability of the BAU non-competition model which exists in most EU member states.
FiTs are interesting because they offer the possibility of financing a move to partial or complete energy independence for individuals and small to medium sized communities. This is bad news for energy companies which would see a declining client base. Ergo – do something about FiTs (a variation on “lunch or be lunch”).
The recent fiasco in the Czech Republic wrt to FiTs and PV is a case in point. The FiT was set at a stupid level due to the support of “traditional” energy companies. A predictable fiasco ensued and the FiT was more or less pulled – cue BAU for the energy companies.
Italy is a bit different given that it still pulls around 20% of electrical power over the Alps. PV offers a way to reduce this dependence. France with EdF and lots of nuclear has scaled back on PV and of course is moving at a snails pace with respect to enhanced power connections to Spain. Funny – getting power lines from France to Italy is no problem (since the power mostly flows from France to Italy) Spain to Italy (smaller mountains) seems such a bigger problem – perhaps to do with the fact that low cost/no cost Spanish wind would compete with French nuclear – hence a glacial pace for new connection build France – Spain.
Moving back to the UK, the usual suspects want to fund some new nuclear stations and the money needs to come from joe public aka joe mug. FiTs are levied on power bills. Joe mug will be unhappy with both a FiT levy and a nuclear levy QED the massaging of HMG by the power companies to reduce FiTs. It is also worth reflecting on the actions of the regulator and regulatory capture of Ofegm by “the usual suspects” – senior Ofgem people have an “energy industry background” this being newspeak for their recruitment from ….well guess.
The move to distributed generation (i.e. RES embedded in distribution networks) would make a given power network more robust. However, it would also make life much more difficult for energy companies. Hence the resistance to FiTs and the desire to manage the process towards RES such that the energy companies stay in control. I am looking forward to some lunches with my fiends in DG Competition – they find the situation both entertaining and “interesting”. Energy companies can read what they like into the last word of the previous sentence.
Another lie of the free market – lacking any strategic vision, we end up with a small number of very wealthy multinationals making profit from our energy needs. The structure is itself faulty, threatening to collapse at the puff of a solar wind, let alone the lack of cohesive policy for long term supply and management, just construction to suit the needs of the corporations.
Here in the South East of Britain, EDF use to be our DNO. I forget when they bought in to the UK market~ but with our government then talking about a building program of Nuclear Stations to replace our aging Fossil-Fuels ones, EDF with a chain of Nuclear plants 25 miles across the channel, were certainly lobbying No.10 for a piece of the pie. OK, these civil engineering projects take years to complete, even decades, and the planning stage is a gamble of investment. The outcome?
So things didn’t quite go their way, and one reactor gets the go ahead to be built alongside our spent fast reactor at Dungeness~ local residents got that through against the National populace. So what happened next? EDF sell up, now “UK Power Networks” a Chinese company with EDF loitering in the background. In their period of ownership, basic services were delivered, but no longterm cyclical maintenance. Most of the UK’s networks, have underground cabling at the consumer end of the network that is breaking down and needs replacing. UK Power Networks have stopped all programs of work other than the important ones: like burying overhead cables passing through the South Downs National Park, but they are EU funded for that!