Impasse at Stormont – what now for Northern Ireland energy policy?

Power-sharing talks between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) collapsed on 14 February, meaning continued uncertainty on the future policy direction for Northern Ireland (NI). This lack of surety extends into energy. There is a clear sectoral policy gap; the need for an update to the 2010 Strategic Energy Framework (SEF) was repeatedly emphasised to the UK Parliament’s Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in its 2017 NI electricity sector inquiry.

Three factors compound this lack of certainty: the lack of a Stormont executive, cross border relationships with Ireland, and interactions with the UK government.

Related thinking

Home supply and services

Highlights from our Energy Supplier Compliance webinar

As part of our Energy supplier compliance portal service, we run a webinar every 6 months which looks at key updates.    Our latest webinar looked back at the decisions made under Ofgem’s financial resilience plan. This included strengthening milestone assessments and introducing additional reporting requirements. It also decided on the short-term interventions...

Low carbon generation

Week-on-week day-ahead power price losses in the SEM

The first reported week of February 2022 recorded week-on-week day-ahead power price losses in the SEM. Source: SEMO/Cornwall Insight Ireland Despite recent week-on-week price losses, day-ahead power prices remain significantly higher than the prices observed in the opening week of February last year, currently out turning 171.0% higher. Day-ahead power...

Regulation and policy

Ofgem raises modifications ahead of RCC and new switching arrangements

The latest edition of our Faster Switching Service Report due to be issued this week includes the latest developments in Ofgem’s Switching Programme and the associated Retail Energy Code (REC). Launched in November 2019, the Retail Code Consolidation (RCC) Significant Code Review (SCR) set out Ofgem’s intention to amalgamate the...

Announcement

What’s changed? Celebrating 750 issues of Energy spectrum

Today marks 750 editions of Energy Spectrum, our flagship publication which covers news and insight on the energy market. To celebrate, we present six Energy Perspectives from past publications, going as far back as 2005, which we believe still have relevance today.  Issue 4 – ‘Smart metering’ - Energy policy’s missing...

Regulation and policy

What will the introduction of the Retail Energy Code mean for metering companies?

Ofgem has proposed that certain metering companies will need to become full parties to the new dual fuel Retail Energy Code (REC). What will this mean in practice? Metering Equipment Managers (MEMs) is a term introduced for the REC, encompassing electricity Meter Operator Agents (commonly termed MOPs) and gas Meter...

Low carbon generation

Demand trends: August sees highest demand since March

This article was originally published on 25 August 2020 in our ‘SEM and commodity pricing report’.   In this week’s blog we take a look at the latest fundamental developments impacting power prices in the SEM. This will see us take a look at wind generation in the SEM this year, while...

Regulation and policy

New horizons: DCC plans to expand remit over next 5 years

The government awarded the Data Communications Company (DCC) licence to Capita subsidiary Smart DCC Ltd in 2013. As an Ofgem-regulated monopoly, the DCC’s remit was to set up the smart metering communications infrastructure, linking up 53mn electricity and gas meters with the systems of energy suppliers, network companies and third...

Commercial and market outlook

Changes: how our Spectrum service is evolving

This article was originally published on 9 June 2020 in our ‘Energy Spectrum Ireland’ publication.  Since Cornwall Insight launched the Energy Spectrum Ireland Service in 2015, it has been providing insight on key developments in the energy markets in Ireland. With the macro market trends of decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitilisation,...