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The Green Recovery Capacity Building Scheme is a new £920,000 revenue grant scheme to increase capacity within the environmental non-governmental organisation (eNGO) sector. The scheme offers grants from £5,000–£100,000 for environmental organisations in Wales to build skills, develop ideas and improve the services they deliver. The new scheme is being delivered in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the...

The government has launched a consultation on annual tolerance levels associated with smart meter installation targets for energy suppliers in Great Britain and the level of reporting thresholds for large energy suppliers. In June, the government confirmed a new four-year smart metering policy framework to start on 1 July 2021, following a 2019 consultation. This framework was designed to drive the...

Vodafone has committed to reducing the company’s total global carbon emissions to ‘net zero’ by 2040 and confirmed that its 2030 carbon reduction targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative. By 2030, Vodafone seeks to eliminate all carbon emissions from its own activities and from energy it purchases and uses (Scope 1 and 2). The company also pledged...

Water regulator Ofwat has announced Nesta, supported by Arup and Isle Utilities, as its partner for its £200 million water innovation competitions, with the first competition set to open in January 2021. Ofwat announced in August that it was driving forward plans on its innovation fund and competitions during 2020-25 – and was recruiting an innovation fund partner through a...

To open in late 2021, the fourth round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme will aim to double the capacity of renewable energy compared to the last round and expand the number of technologies supported, with offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, tidal and floating offshore wind projects all eligible to bid. This will be coupled with a new consultation...

Ofgem is consulting on proposals to amend the default tariff price cap’s ‘Adjustment Allowance’ to take into account the impact of COVID-19 on the efficient costs of supplying domestic default tariff customers. This consultation sets out Ofgem's proposals on adjusting the default tariff cap to allow for the recovery of additional debt-related costs as a result of the pandemic that...

In a recent round of depsys' distribution grid health checks, more than 50 per cent of customers discovered critical points in their networks they were previously unaware of, including loading, voltage and power quality issues. Headquartered in Puidoux, Switzerland, depsys has 40 Distribution System Operators (DSOs) customers around the world and has extended its free quarterly Health Check reports to...

Mortgage providers could be required to publish the energy efficiency data for their property portfolios and could agree to meet a portfolio average of EPC Band C by 2030, as the government consults on new proposals. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is seeking views on how mortgage lenders can help householders to improve the energy performance of their...

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is seeking views on proposed updates on the existing ecodesign and energy labelling requirements which apply to light sources and separate control gears ('lighting products') in the UK. Ecodesign aims to phase out the least efficient energy-related products from the market through minimum energy performance requirements, whilst energy labelling aims to drive the...

An independent non-profit initiative is developing an industry standard of hourly certificates for consumers to track the source of their energy and understand their carbon emissions. Called EnergyTag, the initiative is a voluntary set of guidelines that work with existing certificate schemes such as GOs and RECs and with other procurement methods such as PPAs as a voluntary 'add-on' and...