Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 3RD - 9TH AUGUST 2018 | 23 Operations & Assets Speakers' views: 1. While decarbonisation of electricity is the direction of travel, the speed of the change is open to debate. 2. Heating remains the biggest "unknown", and whether hydrogen will have any role to play. 3. The extent of decentralisation and the pace of digitalisation are the other two big questions. 4. Regulations are failing to keep pace with change, and regulators should aim to be more agile in their reaction times. 5. Consumers pay the bills and they should be central to decision-making. Key points Suleman Alli, director of strategy and regulation, UK Power Networks "Figure out what it is you want, give the right incentives to the companies, and then let them go and deliver." Akshay Kaul, director of RIIO price controls, Ofgem "The choice really is about how much you rely on market-based signals to govern decentralised decision making around the system and how much you try and centralise through regulatory interventions on rules. I think the jury's out on that one." Brought to you in association with Jason Mann, senior managing director, FTI Consulting "One of the answers is making sure you have a framework in place that allows proper interactions between the local and the national and you have correct allocation of prices and risks." over issues such as the decarbonisation of heat, which could have a very notice- able impact on people's daily routines and require their buy-in. Many thought one of the best ways to deal with uncertainty is to create market arrange- ments that properly compensate participants for the value they bring, while also charging them appropriately for the costs they impose. This would help facilitate the dynamic optimisation of the energy system, lowering energy bills, and allow new products and services to find their place, even if they were unanticipated. However, several attendees raised con- cerns over the implications for equity and vulnerable customers. While strong price signals might be appropriate for EV charg- ing, said one, this would be unaccepta- ble for heating where high prices during periods of peak demand could have fatal consequences. This is one of the conundrums Ofgem is looking to resolve as it examines grid access arrangements and network charges via two significant code reviews. There are plenty more questions still le to answer. "We've talked at a really high level about some really big issues. Not many people have put solutions on the table. Everyone has posed questions and the reality is decisions need to be made in the next few years about some of these things." Mark Brackley, project director for RIIO2, National Grid Suleman Alli, director of strategy and regulation at UK Power Networks, will be speaking on "Making failure acceptable" at the Utility Week Congress in October. For more details go to event.utilityweek.co.uk/congress/

• Cover