Third Update of May 2019 – An overview of last week’s Energy news

Below is this week’s summary. It should be a one minute read relevant to UK energy with links to documents for those who wish to read more.

(Click a bullet point to open the relevant article)

Tuesday – 14th May

• In the ongoing US-China Trade War, China has increased tariffs on US Liquid Natural Gas from 10% to 25%. China is expected to overtake Japan as the world’s biggest customer of LNG during the next few years.

• A view of the increased tariffs by China, for US Liquid Natural Gas: Russia will fill the gap. Russia plans to increase LNG production from 57 million tonnes per year to 70 million tonnes per year by 2030. Russia produced zero LNG a year and a half ago.

Wednesday – 15th May

• UK is 8th most attractive nation for investing in renewable energy according to new Ernst and Young report. China has the top spot. USA is second. France: 3rd. Germany: 6th. Offshore wind investment buoys UK position. 

Thursday – 16th May

• BBC coverage of UK Labour Party announcement of policy to re-nationalise the national grid for gas and electricity in the event of winning a General Election and forming a Government.

• This is a link to the full document from the UK Labour Party. I’m interested to hear thoughts from members of this group.

• A BBC article summarising history of UK household gas and electricity consumption and bills since privatisation. Item includes graph below showing how energy bill is broken down. “Supplier pre-tax margin” is profit: Looks like about 4%.

Saturday – 18th May

• UK solar electricity generation broke previous record for peak generation twice in 2 consecutive days during the week. Brief periods around 9.5 GW broke previous record of 9.4 GW achieved in 2017. UK power demand at the time was around 35 GW.

• The Guardian take on the shock election result in Australia which contradicted all the polls: “It was billed as the climate change election and the climate lost”.

Sunday – 19th May

• An article from The Scottish Farmer, not one used in this update previously, refers to hydrogen as “the hot topic” at the annual All-Energy Conference held in Glasgow this week. I include this because this view is consistent wherever UK energy is being discussed including BEIS.