The state-owned South African power firm, Eskom, raised its prices by a whopping 24.8 per cent recently, causing many trade unions to threaten strikes in protest.
Businesses and the general public are likely to struggle to cope with such a surge in price, say the unions, while the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that businesses were already struggling due to the recession, implying that this could tip many over the edge.
Eskom has been struggling to meet the country’s electricity needs of late and needs finance in order to build additional power stations, therefore, this price was not unexpected. Power rationing is being implemented, which has been hugely problematic for South African mines, which are at the heart of the nation’s economy.
British gas saw record profits in 2009, it has been announced. A 58 per cent increase in profit saw the residential side of the company profit by £595million – an improvement on the 2007 figure of £573million.
In response to this, British Gas will aim for a profit margin of around 7 per cent this year, where 2009 was closer to 8 per cent. This means that gas prices will be reduced by around 7 per cent and could also see 1,100 jobs created this year.
The energy supplier acquired 141,000 customers last year, taking its total customer base to 15.7million homes.
Energy performance certificates are all over the news and Internet recently, they are so much in the news that people are starting to use them as a every day word such as E P C and other variations. The term refers to a certificate you need when trying to sell your home. Here are the rules
“Energy Performance Certificate - new rules This bit is important because under new regulations, from October 1st 2008, you - the homeowner - are responsible for the Energy Performance Certificate. So you need to check your estate agent doesn’t trip-up and potentially land you both with a £200 fine, per instance! From October 1st 2008, an Energy Performance Certificate must now be available:
when the property is viewed;
when written information is provided on request;
before contracts are exchanged.
Sales particulars: Displaying the Energy Performance Certificate
As a minimum, the asset ratings graphs (see top picture) from your EPC must be included within the sales particulars (including electronic) if they contain two or more of the following:
A photograph of the building or any room inside the building
A floor plan of the building
A description of the size of the rooms in the building.
Advertising
With window cards and newspaper adverts you are not legally obliged to include the rating graphs, although the Government suggests it would be good practice to do so if they contain any two of the above items.
Commissioned
By ‘commissioned’, the Government means all documents - including the EPC - within your HIP must have been ordered with a commitment to pay. There should also be an expectation that all documents will be made available within 28 days. If they are not (unlikely in most cases), the person responsible for marketing your home must make reasonable efforts to obtain them as soon as possible, or risk pain of penalty (see below). From 31st December 2008 a Home Information Pack must be available from the time it is first placed on the market (subject to Govt review) - This date ends the transition period allowing Hips only to be commissioned before marketing commences.
Enforcement penalty fine (£200)
If you - or your estate agent - is responsible for actively marketing your home, there is pain in store for not obtaining a HIP: £200 penalty fine (repeatable for each day). The EPC, however, is solely the homeowners responsibility; although it would be a daft estate agent that attempts to market a home without an EPC in the HIP because they too would kop for a fine. Estate agents are automatically reported to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) too; with continued naughtiness leading to a banning order.”
Personally I think the whole thing is another way the government is making money and probably putting thousands of pounds worth of claims into there own greedy pockets through the expenses claims that there has been massive uproar over. What do you think of E P C’ s? Technically the information that i given will either make your house more salable or not, as if you are given a rating of F or G then your house will have a high running cost when it comes to things like heating.
Sofa Workshop, which collapsed into administration just a week ago, has been purchased by a consortium headed by one of its founders.
Part of the bespoke sofa retailer’s business, comprising of 10 stores with turnover of £30m has been sold by the administrators to Erewash Upholstery, run by investors’ consortium. It is led by Andrew Cussins, founder of the Sofa Workshop. Read the rest of this entry »
A Sheffield company has made a formal request to the Government to provide part funding for its ambitious plan of building world’s biggest steel-forging press to take a lead in the fast growing nuclear industry.
Sheffield Forgemasters has plans to fabricate a massive 15,000 tonnes pressure open-die press which can produce components as big as largest modern reactors. Read the rest of this entry »
Former coal mining sites in the UK are to be redeveloped into wind farms as part of a scheme to replace old energy with new.
Peel Energy and UK Coal, in a joint venture, will erect 54 turbines on 14 old colliery locations to generate 133 megawatts per hour and provide electricity to 80,000 homes in the UK.
UK Coal was formerly part of the National Coal Board. Its chief executive John Lloyd declared that there was significant opportunity for wind farm development on parts of UK Coal’s land portfolio. He claimed that by announcing joint venture with Peel Energy, company has joined forces with most knowledgeable and active wind power companies of the UK.
UK Coal has already started harnessing of methane gas and is hoping to submit for planning permission for sites which will be ready in next three months.
Peel Energy is already generating 450MW wind power and also working on Scout Moor project, England’s largest, with 26 turbines. It is developing Royal Seaforth Dock wind farm and has sought planning permission for wind farm at Port of Sheerness.
According to Peel Energy’s director Steven Underwood, agreement with UK Coal was a step forward in expanding onshore pipeline and getting access to best wind farm sites of the UK.
An analyst at Numis Securities termed the deal as pretty good and commented that UK Coals’ innovative wind farm initiatives would derive big advantage from Peel Energy’s capital and expertise.
The Environmental Agency wants water companies in England and Wales to increase efficiency of their resources and reduce the demand for water. It expects them to allocate more funds for infrastructure and maintenance in its effort to cut pollution and reduce the impact of flooding.
The Environmental Agency was pleased with the proposals water companies submitted to the industry regulator Oft regarding their 5-year business plans. But it warned that companies needed to do more.
According to the director of water management, David King, proposals from water companies were commendable, but the Agency was keen to know details of capital maintenance plans and sought reassurance that those investments would be contributing to protection of environment and delivering value for money.
According to Environmental Agency calculations, one fifth of serious pollution incidents were caused by water companies, many of which were due to poor maintenance and ageing or overloading of infrastructure.
The agency is also insisting companies to review plans on protection of water treatment and sewage works to eliminate risk of flooding.
With due consideration to the business plan, Oft will determine what prices can be charged by the companies for water and sewerage services to customers during 2010 to 2015.
A large number of factories in the UK might be forced to close down due to likely surge in power prices in late autumn and winter.
The country is likely to face acute power shortage since many power stations would be undergoing repairs and coal-fired plants being closed for installation of pollution control equipments during winter. This has caused big surge in power prices much ahead of winter.
The price warning came from the Energy Intensive Users’ Group, a representative body of the factories which consume more gas and electricity. The Group’s director Jeremy Nicholson informed that increase in base-load prices was huge and prices almost doubled compared to what they were last year. This pushed up costs at a time when sales in many sectors were falling sharply.
Jeremy did not rule out possibility of suspension pf operations by the factories to save money. In addition, he added, factories were more apprehensive about power supply conditions on account of scheduled maintenance of power plants in the country during winter.
Jeremy stated that despite of current downward trend in energy prices on world commodity markets, it would take few months for the benefits to reach customers.
British Energy, the major supplier of power in the UK, declared that 2 of its nuclear reactors at Heysham and Hartlepool were likely to restart only in 2009 while four others would start functioning in 2008.
The UK manufacturing is passing through its worst phase. It recorded its sixth consecutive fall in monthly production touching the lowest figure since 1980.
Order books were also in the worst state for the first time in last 30 years. The shrinking labour market was pointing to the onslaught of a full-blown recession, placing pressure on the Bank of England to lower interest rates.
According to a release from the Office for National Statistics, the fall in manufacturing output was 0.4% in August 2008, making it the sixth consecutive fall and longest negative growth spell since 1980. The worst affected sector was the electrical and equipment which registered 3.1% fall in its output. The output in food, drinks and tobacco industry was down by 1.6% while it was less by 2.3% in the car industry and transport sector.
As per the official definition of recession, Britain could avoid negative economic growth in two consecutive quarters so far. But the analysts are apprehensive about third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) which they feared could be minus 0.3%
According to the UK economist Alan Clarke, the grim economic situation was heading to worse and figures of output suggested that manufacturing sector was contracting while services industry was on its knees. He predicted four quarters of negative GDP growth and slow climb back thereafter.
The UK government’s plans for nuclear power stations received a long awaited boost after French group EDF succeeded in clinching £12.5bn deal to buy British Energy. EDF will now build four new reactors to enhance the UK’s power generation capacity.
The government will gain more than £4bn from the deal through its 36% stake in British Energy, enabling it to start new power plants.
EDF, the world’s biggest nuclear power generator with a majority stake by the French Government, intends to construct and operate two reactors each at BE’s existing sites Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley Point in Somerset.
The French group is negotiating the sale of a 25% stake in the new British Energy to Centrica, which is interested in power-sharing after the completion of takeover.
EDF will pay 774p a share, 9p higher than what it had offered in July, but was rejected by BE shareholders as too low. The deal is the largest ever investment made by any foreign company in Britain.
The deal was welcomed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a significant step in building a new generation of nuclear power stations and providing good value for the taxpayers.
BE Chairman described the deal as good for shareholders, BE staff, nuclear industry and the country as a whole.
EDF’s planned reactors will be able to meet 13% of the UK’s energy demand by 2020, saving nearly 14m tonnes of CO2 emission annually. The first reactor will be in operation by 2017.