Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 1ST - 7TH MARCH 2019 | 5 "The CCC is being misguided and overstepping its carbon emissions monitoring and target-setting role by straying into policy areas beyond its remit" Paul Blacklock, head of strategy and corporate affairs at Calor, criticises the Committee on Climate Change's recommendation that no new homes should be connected to the gas grid from 2025 onwards. (See news, p13). United Utilities sewer engineers will remove a giant fatberg from a Liverpool sewer using picks and shovels. The 90-tonne, 80m-long blockage under Birchall Street could not be demolished using water jets and so the team will have to hack it out by hand. The work is expected to take around eight weeks. ENERGY Co-op signs up Home Serve Co-op Energy has signed a fi ve-year contract with home maintenance company Home Serve to offer insurance policies to its 370,000 customers. The deal will enable customers to buy policies covering repairs to electrics, plumbing, central heat- ing and boilers, all delivered under Co-op's branding. ELECTRICITY Offi ce for Nuclear Regulation appoints new chair Mark McAllister has been appointed the new chair of the Offi ce for Nuclear Regulation. The oil industry veteran takes over from the regulator's current chair, Nick Baldwin, in April as it prepares to assume a wider role covering the UK's anti-nuclear proliferation safeguarding regime. Under the withdrawal deal, which has been agreed with the EU but not yet ratifi ed by parliament, UK nuclear safeguarding would remain the remit of Euratom until the end of the proposed transi- tional period in December 2020. 2.3GW Energy and climate change minister Claire Perry has claimed there are 2.3GW of potentially subsidy-free solar projects in the planning pipeline. Water retailers have failed to "turn the tide" on business complaints, which have remained high in the second year of the open market, the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) has warned. The watchdog has published • gures revealing it received 1,037 complaints from businesses about water retailers in the third quarter of 2018/19 – almost 200 more than during the same period last year. Grievances about billing and charges accounted for the large majority (seven out of ten) of the complaints received by CCWater between October and December 2018, with poor market data o‰ en the root cause of problems. NON-HOUSEHOLD WATER COMPLAINTS 2018/19 Q3 53 729 28 58 15 145 9 2018/19 Q2 54 762 30 76 23 147 17 2017/18 Q3 49 547 20 46 20 159 6 Retail Billing & Metering Water Sewerage Administration Other competition charges Complaints Who were the complaints about? www.ccwater.org.uk @WaterWatchdog Third quarter contact from business customers 1 October to 31 December 2018 Size of business contacting us (complaints and enquiries) Micro (0-10) Small (11-50) Medium (51-250) Large (>250 employees) What business customers complained about 1,037 2018/19 Q3 1,109 2018/19 Q2 847 2017/18 Q3 72.7% 15.2% 8.3% 3.8% 4.1% 2.0% Retailer Wholesaler Other 93.8%

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