Energy

Bloomberg Meeting Britain’s 2050 climate goals will require the nation to wean itself off using natural gas for heating, but the nation’s electricity system probably won’t cope unless thermal storage technology improves. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the heating sector is “one of the toughest challenges the country faces in its low-carbon transition,” according to a report published by the ...

Bloomberg Cheap drones are poised to boost output and cut operating expenses for the energy industry. The unmanned aerial vehicles are generally faster and less expensive than people, and can go places that may not be safe for workers. As costs fall, and their capabilities increase, drones are spotting leaks in natural gas pipelines, helping utilities inspect transmission and distribution ...

Bloomberg Ensign Energy Services Inc. went hostile with a roughly C$470 million ($358 million) cash bid for Trinidad Drilling Ltd. after objecting to the terms of a confidentiality agreement the rival oilfield-service company wanted it to sign to engage in negotiations. Trinidad’s demand for “a lengthy standstill provision” wasn’t in the best interest of shareholders, Calgary-based Ensign said. Standstill agreements ...

Bloomberg The smoke billowing from California’s wildfires is dimming output from solar farms. First Solar Inc., which operates more than two gigawatts of solar farms in the state — that’s equivalent to about two nuclear reactors — has seen production dip at installations near fires, according to spokesman Steve Krum. The slumps in generation have been “very minimal,” he said, ...

Bloomberg Centrica Plc raised its price for power and gas for a second time this year, citing soaring costs of buying energy on the wholesale market. The utility’s British Gas unit, the nation’s biggest supplier to homes, will increase its standard variable tariff in October, hiking the average bill for the 3.5 million customers on the plan by 3.8 percent ...

Bloomberg Investors have been pushing Canadian energy companies to merge so they can cut costs and combine resources. That isn’t going so well this year. The value of deals involving Canadian oil, natural gas and pipeline companies slumped 29 percent to $45.5 billion in the first seven months of the year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Exclude $22.3 billion ...

Bloomberg Bright and breezy days are becoming a deeper nightmare for utilities struggling to earn a return on traditional power plants. With wind and solar farms sprouting up in more areas — and their power getting priority to feed into the grid in many places — the amount of electricity being generated is outstripping demand during certain hours of the ...

Bloomberg A California-based clean-energy financing company closed a $103 million bond offering backed by commercial loans supporting renewables, energy-efficiency and water and seismic-upgrade projects. CleanFund Commercial PACE Capital Inc.’s bond deal is one of the first to bundle C-PACE obligations — commercial property assessed clean-energy — according to a statement. PACE uses property tax liens to repay the debts. The ...

Bloomberg Protests at some South African power stations amid deadlocked wage talks are stopping coal from getting to plants and threaten to force the country’s electricity provider to implement rolling blackouts. “The national grid is expected to be constrained this evening due to instability at several power stations due to acts of intimidation,” Khulu Phasiwe, a spokesman for Eskom, said ...

Bloomberg Bloom Energy Corp, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed maker of fuel-cell power systems, climbed on its first day of trading after pricing a rare alternative-energy IPO. The shares rose 47 percent to $22.10 in New York, giving the company a market value of about $2.34 billion. Bloom Energy sold 18 million shares for $15 apiece after marketing the ...