Utility Week

8 | 12TH - 18TH OCTOBER 2018 | UTILITY WEEK News dim view. Michael Roberts, chief executive of Water UK, said: "To replace managers who have decades of experience in running successful water companies, and put much- needed investment at risk by handing the industry over to politicians, risks years of chaos in an essential public service. "At the moment there's a well-run water industry that's delivering lower bills, increas- ing investment, and which has cut leakage by a third over the past 20 years." At a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference, sponsored by his organisa- tion, Roberts highlighted the risk that invest- ment would fall under nationalisation. He said: "It's not obvious that water would be as high a priority as schools and hospitals. It was privatised because water was not seen as a priority and failing to deliver." And he highlighted the risks of absorb- ing the industry's regulation into the government. Clean Energy Labour upped the stakes on renewable energy at its conference. Rebecca Long Bai- ley, the party's shadow secretary for busi- ness and energy, signed up the party to cutting emissions to "net zero" by 2050. This effectively outpaced the govern- ment's commitment to get the Committee on Climate Change to explore such a move this autumn. To demonstrate Labour's commitment to meeting what is an ambitious goal, Long- Bailey outlined how the party would first ensure that 60 per cent of UK energy was derived from renewables and other low car- bon sources within a dozen years of a Labour government being elected. The party has pledged a sevenfold increase in UK offshore wind power to 7,000 turbines and 52GW capacity, which Long-Bailey claimed would power 12 mil- lion homes. Labour also aims to double the UK's onshore wind and almost triple its solar power output. By contrast, last week's Conservative conference contained no new pledges on renewable energy except for a hint from the Treasury's Jenrick that the area would be addressed in the upcoming Budget. But the pressure was building on min- sters at last week's conference fringe to review policy on onshore wind and solar. They are the two cheapest forms of renew- able generation but both currently lack a route to market. Tom Glover, UK chair of RWE, told one meeting the government is "missing a trick" by not allowing onshore solar and wind pro- jects to participate in its contract for differ- ence (CfD) auctions. He said: "It is clearly the cheapest renew- able technology and yet currently doesn't have a route to market. We now need support of future auctions so we can get that pipeline going." James Heappey, the Conservative MP who chairs the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, told the same fringe meeting that large-scale solar projects were close to being able to operate without subsidy. But the former army officer said the Conservatives must "rehabilitate" onshore wind. Reaching for a military metaphor, he said the government had "double-tapped" onshore wind, or shot it twice, by both making it harder to grant planning permis- sion and closing off the CfD route for such projects. "If we have strengthened the planning system and done it properly so that wind Inside story can be delivered as cheaply – and competi- tively – as possible. And referring to clean energy, he said the Treasury is keen to make this a "significant part" of the Budget, which is due to be deliv- ered at the end of this month. Energy costs Energy costs didn't get much of a look-in during the latest party conference season compared with last year when Theresa May rounded off the Conservatives' annual gath- ering with a pledge to legislate a cap on standard variable tariff prices. This year, by contrast, the price cap received only a nod in May's speech as proof of the Tories' commitment to fix broken markets. The passage of the energy price cap legis- lation has taken the sting out of this debate, although this could be temporary: Labour's shadow energy minister, Alan Whitehead, raised concerns at his party's conference that vulnerable households could end up paying more than other customers due to the way the ceiling is calculated. In what could herald a longer-term fix for prices, the party conferences saw a greater focus on energy efficiency this year. Labour's environment manifesto con- tained a bold promise to invest £2.3 billion in upgrading four million homes to Energy Per- formance Certificate (EPC) band C standard during the party's first term in government. The topic is also on Conservative minds. The Parliamentary Renewable and Sustain- able Energy Group's Heappey called for a rethink on the winter fuel payment, which provides all pensioners with up to £300 of help with their cold weather bills, regardless of income. He said: "It's spewing money out to incentivise people to burn fuel. Every winter we hand over cheques to people irrespec- tive of how effectively they are spending that money thereaer." He suggested converting those payments into vouchers, perhaps by bundling up sev- eral years of payments into one lump sum, which could pay for installing energy effi- ciency measures that would then deliver greater long-term benefits. Pledges to maintain these payments, outlined in both the Conservative and Democratic Unionist Party general election manifestoes, mean they are "unlikely" to be scrapped, pointed out the Treasury's Jenrick. But setting an energy efficiency example with the public estate will be a focus of the Treasury's upcoming spending review next year, with Jenrick saying his department is "really interested" in the topic. The Labour party has pledged a sevenfold increase in UK offshore wind power to 7,000 turbines and 52GW capacity within a dozen years of it being elected. cannot be built without local consent, there's nothing to fear from pot 1 auctions because undeniably it's the cheapest form of generation," he said. His fellow Conservative MP Peter Aldous, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Energy Storage, said the government should persevere with both a carbon capture and storage trial project and the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon scheme. "Both didn't pass Go because they were perceived as being expensive, but I don't think the government has given up on either." Dating back to the cull of renewable energy and insulation initiatives aer the 2015 election, the Treasury has oen been fingered as the biggest block to progress in such areas. Jenrick responded to Heappey by arguing that onshore policy wind policy is a matter for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but he added that the Treasury is interested in seeing how energy

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