Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 19TH - 25TH OCTOBER 2018 | 5 "Water companies believe passionately in a healthier, greener nation and the positive contribution we make to it" Michael Roberts, chief executive of Water UK, responds to a report by the Green Alliance recommending water companies align their environmental spending with the UK's post-Brexit farm subsidy regime. Twelve young people graduated with flying colours from United Utilities' youth programme on 12 October. Among the group who completed the six-week programme were young people from Warrington, Heywood and Ashton-in-Makerfield. The company is currently running its ninth intake and has seen "exceptional completion rates". Many of this year's intake are now progressing into paid employment. ELECTRICITY Tweaks to green subsidies mooted The government has promised to tweak the rules for subsidising renewable projects after next year's round of its auction programme for supporting low-carbon power. In its response to the Committee on Climate Change's 2018 progress report, published on 15 October, the government confirmed its announcement last August that the next contracts for difference (CfD) round will run next May and every two years thereafter. In response to the committee's specific recommendation that CfDs should offer a route to market for onshore wind and solar, currently the cheapest forms of renewable generation, the government said it was considering "further refinements". It said these tweaks would be designed to further stimulate the deployment of renewables while "driving costs for consumers down". The consultation on mooted policy changes will be published to inform 2021's scheduled CfD alloca- tion round four. ELECTRICITY SSEN makes case for link to Shetlands Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has submitted a final needs case to Ofgem for a new 600MW subsea transmission link connecting the Shetland Islands to the mainland power grid. The power system for the archi- pelago currently operates as an islanded network, with all electricity needs met by local generation. As a result, there is no spare capacity to connect new generation on the islands or export the output to the energy market in Great Britain. SSEN said there is now an opportunity to proceed with the upgrade after the government confirmed in June that onshore wind projects on remote islands will be able to compete in the next contracts for difference auction in May 2019. >2.5GW Ofgem has started the sixth tender round of the offshore transmission owner regime. The regulator has invited bids to own and operate the grid connections for three offshore windfarms with a combined capacity of more than 2.5GW. £5 million Thames Water has partnered with the mayor of London to deliver a £5 million scheme to create a network of hundreds of free public water fountains across London. Scottish Power goes 100% wind Scottish Power is selling 2.6GW of gas, hydro and pumped gen- eration to Drax for £702 million, which will leave the Scottish company with just wind power in its generation portfolio. It closed it last coal power plant, Longannet, in 2016.

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