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Small scale renewable energy is challenging big utilities

Small-scale renewable energy is more accessible to new entrants compared with the forward purchase of huge amounts of baseload generation from burning fossil fuels, which is the routine business of big utilities.

Change so far is happening slowly and from a tiny base but the cost of small-scale renewable technologies is falling.

Micro-Power Presents Slow-Burn Threat to Utilities  Planet Ark: 27-May-11 SPAIN AND U.K. : Martin Roberts and Gerard Wynn  A wide rollout of small-scale renewable energy poses a long-term challenge to utilities as households switch to home generation and the supply market opens, executives at green specialists and independents say.

Small-scale renewable energy is more accessible to new entrants compared with the forward purchase of huge amounts of baseload generation from burning fossil fuels, which is the routine business of big utilities.

Change so far is happening slowly and from a tiny base but the cost of small-scale renewable technologies is falling.

In Britain, the big six utilities supply more than 99.5 percent of all electricity, according to the watchdog Ofgem, but a growing supply of wind power and new support for solar is driving a slow shift to specialists.

Some market regulators are moving to try to increase competitiveness. In March, Britain’s Ofgem proposed measures to increase pressure on the big six utilities, such as making it easier for smaller companies to buy energy in wholesale markets.

“We think we’ve come in at a time when momentum is on our side,” said Nigel Mason, business development manager at Co-operative Energy, which entered the UK power supply market two weeks ago offering what it described as a simple, transparent charging system…….

Spain gets just 2 percent of its electricity from solar power, but barely any of that is produced by utilities.

“It is no longer a curiosity for the utilities and is now a rival for some of them,” said Antonio Luque, founder of Madrid Polytechnic’s Solar Energy Institute and of Spanish solar energy firm Isofoton….World Environment News – Micro-Power Presents Slow-Burn Threat to Utilities – Planet Ark

May 28, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decentralised, Spain, UK