Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 1ST - 7TH FEBRUARY 2019 | 5 "The public has been given an unrealistic impression of prices and has been led to believe that SVTs are significantly above the competitive level" Former Ofgem boss professor Stephen Littlechild says the prepayment price cap must end. "We have no plans to cut UK staff numbers" An EDF spokesman denies rumours circulating in the national press that it plans to reduce its UK workforce. 196,343 The number of 100 per cent electric and plug-in hybrid cars registered in the UK to date. 8 Water retailer Wave has taken on eight employees and moved its billing function for Scottish customers to premises at Ocean Point in Leith as part of expansion plans. Thames Water will give £80,000 to the South East Rivers Trust to help make amends for a pollution incident in 2013 when sewage escaped from a blocked sewer in Chislehurst. ELECTRICITY Distributed energy desk for Grid The electricity system operator at National Grid has created a dedi- cated control room desk for issuing instructions to smaller generators, battery storage operators and demand-side response providers. In its first 24 hours of opera- tion, the volume of bids and offers accepted from distributed energy resources – those connected to dis- tribution networks – rose by 113 per cent on the previous daily average, to 87MWh. The move comes after Lime- jump's "virtual power plant" became the first aggregated unit to enter the balancing mechanism in August. Our Environmental OVERALL SUMMARY OF BLUEPRINT FOR WATER'S FINDINGS Water & Sewerage Company PR19 Ranking Based on Main Plan Content (Scorecard 1) PR14 Ranking (for comparison) Ranking based on Relevant Common Performance Commitments (Scorecard 2) Number of Relevant Bespoke Commitments (Scorecard 3) South West Water 1 (3) =1 14 Northumbrian Water =2 (9) =1 12 Anglian Water =2 (8) 7 9 Wessex Water 4 (2) =4 17 Southern Water 5 (4) =1 18 United U li es =6 (1) 6 10 Yorkshire Water =6 (5) =4 16 Thames Water 8 (7) 9 14 Severn Trent Water 9 (6) 8 14 Water Only Company PR19 Ranking Based on Main Plan Content (Scorecard 1) PR14 Ranking (for comparison) Ranking based on Relevant Common Performance Commitments (Scorecard 2) Number of Relevant Bespoke Commitments (Scorecard 3) South East Water 1 (3) =1 10 SES Water 2 (8) 6 9 Bristol Water =3 (4) =1 8 =3 (1) 5 6 Portsmouth Water 5 (2) 4 7 Cambridge & South Staffs Water 6 (5/6) 3 8 Water company environmental ambition ranked South West Water and South East Water have shown the highest level of environ- mental ambition in their PR19 business plans, according to the Blueprint for Water coalition. The companies topped an environmental league table that assesses how well their main PR19 business plan documents reflect the environmental asks of the group. "For the water and sewerage companies Northumbrian, South West, Wessex Water and Anglian Water come out top in our assessment," the Blueprint said. For the water-only companies, South East Water is the standout performer, closely followed by SES Water.

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