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4,000 of Portsmouth's most vulnerable households will get help and energy advice through cash secured by Portsmouth City Council. The £170,000 grant comes from the charity the Environment Centre as part of its Energy Redress Scheme, which aims to get people out of fuel poverty. This is the latest in £7.4m of grants awarded to the Council over the last two...

KALUZA, OVO Group’s intelligent energy platform, has announced that it is the first residential technology platform to provide a paid flexibility service to a UK Distribution Network Operator, Western Power Distribution. Through Western Power Distribution's flexibility interface ‘Flexible Power’, Kaluza successfully delivered a flexibility service using a portfolio of domestic sonnen batteries in Lincolnshire. Conor Maher-McWilliams, Head of Flexibility at Kaluza,...

AS we approach some key dates in the British politics, ICON's Policy and Business Impacts Analyst Rebecca Gaskill shares her thoughts on the upcoming budget. Returning Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has stated an ambitious goal: 'To make this country the cleanest, greenest on Earth with the most far-reaching environmental programme.' With the budget announced for the 11th March and a clear...

A NEW project by Energy Networks Association helps make Britain 'a superpower of renewable energy', by implementing standardised processes and practices that will prepare for net zero. By focusing this year on open data, local markets for flexibility, and working with community groups, their Open Networks project will 'take the transition to the smart grid to the next level.' Commenting on...

TREE-PLANTING levies for airlines, growing bioenergy crops and restoring peatlands are among recommendations to 'transform' land use in the UK to reach net zero targets. The Committee on Climate Change's new report, Land use: Policies for a Net Zero UK, presents a detailed range of options to drive emissions reductions in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Lord Deben, Chairman of...

EDF is launching a three-year partnership with Prostate Cancer UK to fund research into the disease which is set to become the UK’s most common cancer by the end of this decade.   The company aims to raise a total of £300,000 for the charity between now and 2023. EDF CEO, Simone Rossi commented on the collaboration: “We are delighted to...

CO-OP has announced a new commitment to only using 100% own-brand recyclable packaging which will lead to 'the largest-ever UK-wide scheme to recycle plastic film.' The Co-op’s Ethical Consumerism Report, which has tracked ethical expenditure year by year over the past two decades, reveals the extent to which UK consumers now shop with their hearts on their sleeves. The report, which focuses on...

AHEAD of launching their Clean Air Zone, City of York Council has awarded over £1.6 million to five bus companies to make their vehicles more environmentally-friendly. Before the launch of a Clean Air Zone in York city centre later this month, City of York Council has awarded more than £1.6 million in funding to five bus companies to help them...

A TOTAL of £9m has been invested to the scale-up and international expansion of an intelligent energy and smart grid platform provider for Distributed Energy Resource Management. GridBeyond, which was recently named a 2020 Global Cleantech 100 company, has successfully concluded its Series B financing round. Michael Phelan, Chief Executive and Co-founder at GridBeyond, commented on the news: “The newly completed...

IMPERIAL College London has outlined plans to transform the capital’s global response to climate change through a new collaboration with the Mayor of London. The College is to establish a new centre for climate change innovation at its White City campus, driving the development of new technologies, businesses and jobs across London that will support a zero carbon and climate-resilient...