Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 12TH - 18TH APRIL 2019 | 3 This week 4 | Seven days 6 | Inside story The burning issue for energy from waste 8 Policy & Regulation 8 | News Start of smart meter obligation postponed 10 | Opinion Alan Whitehead MP 11 Finance & Investment 11 | News Tideway reports 8% rise in tunnel costs 12 Operations & Assets 12 | High viz United Utilities goes green at Davyhulme 13 | Market view What next for the capacity market? 14 | Analysis Four pilot projects aimed at creating smart local energy systems 16 | Market view DNOs and the transition to EVs 17 Customers 17 | News Clear Business adopts Aquafl ow customers 18 | View from the top Graeme Forbes, head of market solutions, Gemserv 20 | Event The Future Retail conference #2 22 | Awards case study The Customer Care Award 24 | Utility Week Live Changing business models 30 Community 31 | Disconnector GAS 12 | High viz United Utilities goes green at Davyhulme WATER 11 | News Tideway reports 8% rise in tunnel costs 17 | News Clear Business adopts Aquafl ow customers 20 | Event The Future Retail conference #2 ELECTRICITY 6 | Inside story The burning issue for energy from waste 13 | Market view What next for the capacity market? 14 | Analysis Four pilot projects aimed at creating smart local energy systems 16 | Market view DNOs and the transition to EVs 22 | Awards case study The Customer Care Award ENERGY 8 | News Start of smart meter obligation postponed 10 | Opinion Alan Whitehead MP 18 | View from the top Graeme Forbes, head of market solutions, Gemserv 24 | Utility Week Live Changing business models DOWNLOAD: Reducing bad debt, generating effi ciency and improving the customer journey https://bit.ly/2EbKRH5 See the Community section, page 30 If you are responsible for your company's outsourced or internal customer service centre we can deliver compelling cost savings to your business, with a typical rate for an FTE of just £10 per hour. Synergy operates an established Contact Centre in a modern and thriving part of Durban, South Africa employing experienced and highly educated staff. We already successfully work with a number of UK utilities across a range of services: If you would like to see our operation for yourself we can fly you, at our cost, to South Africa. Here we will give you a full tour of our facilities, a presentation on how we work and access to our professional teams. For further information please contact steve.cripwell@synergyoutsourcingltd.co.uk / 020 7932 4171 or toby.selves@synergyoutsourcingltd.co.uk / 020 7932 4116 Double your successful meter installation rate and halve your costs with MATS - the new Universal SMETS2 Commissioning Mobile App from Cloud KB. It works with all DCC 53 Million Smart Meters by 2020? YOU MUST BE QUACKERS! AN APPSOLUTE MUST Leader Suzanne Heneghan Consequences of Brexit unfolding? If you're reading this a er 11pm on 12 April, then the UK may well have crashed out of Europe. If this is the case, there will now be wall-to-wall TV news coverage raking over the fallout from a Brexit process that has at times seemed like a high-stakes form of the old parlour game Consequences, with politicians making up the Brexit story one line at a time until the big reveal at the end when the piece of paper is ƒ nally unfolded. Alternatively, the EU may have granted the UK an extension on Wednesday and the government and the opposition may be wres- tling with trying to agree a compromise deal to put before the EU. Or perhaps an extension has been granted but the two main parties have failed to agree a deal and parliament is currently vot- ing on a range of options to try to ƒ nd a way forward – including a referendum, a general election or cancelling Brexit. Of course, all this presupposes that the emergency summit of EU leaders on Wednesday did indeed agree to give the UK an extension. All of this adds up to a nightmare exercise for an editor of a magazine writing ahead of make or break national decisions. Yet my problems pale into insigniƒ cance next to the concerns of utility companies attempting to chart a course through the chaos. Chief executives and their teams have a mounting pile of pressing questions on their own Brexit to-do lists, awaiting direction from parliament and the EU. For instance, how exiting the EU will aŠ ect new and existing contract obligations; the impact on major infrastructure plans; the future of interconnector projects; long-term nuclear strategy; and to what extent the UK will continue to apply or mirror EU environmen- tal legislation, including on climate change. Utilities, like businesses throughout the UK, need to quickly understand the likely macro impact of Brexit on investment, as well as the key opportunities thrown up by leaving the European Union – with or without a deal. Patience feels at breaking point as utilities, relatively quiet until now compared with just-in-time businesses, demand to know what all this will mean for them. Or perhaps by the time you are reading this some clarity will at last be emerging. Surely the uncertainty can't go on very much longer… can it? Suzanne Heneghan, acting editor, suzanneheneghan@fav-house.com

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