Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 3RD - 9TH MAY 2019 | 3 This week 4 | Seven days 6 | Interview Keith Anderson, chief executive, Scottish Power 9 Policy & Regulation 9 | News Southern Water update from Ofwat due 'soon' 11 | Chief executive's view Mike Foster, Energy and Utilities Alliance 12 | Analysis Energy UK outlines its vision in its Future of Energy report 14 | Analysis After all the delays, should the smart meter rollout target be scrapped? 17 Finance & Investment 17 | News Energy effi ciency move may cost £65bn 20 Operations & Assets 20 | High viz Yorkshire Water project 21 | Market view Using data to measure environmental impact 22 | Insight report How utilities feel about key cutting-edge technologies 26| Market view What regulation should look like 27 Customers 27 | News Green gas supplying one million homes 28 | Market view What is the carbon footprint of renewables? 29 | Opinion Angela Smith MP 30 Community 31 | Disconnector GAS 11 | Chief executive's view Mike Foster, Energy and Utilities Alliance 27 | News Green gas supplying one million homes WATER 9 | News Southern Water update from Ofwat due 'soon' 20 | High viz Yorkshire Water project 21 | Market view Using data to measure environmental impact 29 | Opinion Angela Smith MP ELECTRICITY 14 | Analysis After all the delays, should the smart meter rollout target be scrapped? 28 | Market view What is the carbon footprint of renewables? ENERGY 6 | Interview Keith Anderson, chief executive, Scottish Power 12 | Analysis Energy UK outlines its vision in its Future of Energy report 17 | News Energy effi ciency move may cost £65bn 22 | Insight report How utilities feel about key cutting- edge technologies 26| Market view What regulation should look like 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 Capturing the mood on carbon W hen it comes to energy policy, the word of the week must be "turbulence". First came calls from cross-party MPs for an urgent government rethink about how to boost the • edgling carbon capture industry, following what they claimed was a decade of "turbulent" direction. Then came the shock weekend resignation of the country's "fracking Tsar" just six months into her post, claiming she couldn't do her job because policy was now being dictated by environmental lobbyists. Being bu- eted by competing interest groups is becoming the new normal for energy companies in the transitioning sector. Stoking the debate was a report from the Business, Energy and Indus- trial Strategy (BEIS) select committee calling on the government to give a clear green light to the widespread use of "necessary" carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) technology. Policies around carbon capture have until now been "so broad as to have been meaningless", it said. Without more clarity over CCUS deployment, the UK risked doubling the cost of meeting its Climate Change Act obligations, leaving Britain unable to "credibly" adopt emis- sions targets in line with the Paris Agreement. And that is before tougher "net zero" carbon targets are factored in. Government advisers should have made recommendations on net zero targets by the time Utility Week goes to press. Of course, not everyone is convinced about the value and potential of CCUS. Among other things, critics point to its high cost compared with low-carbon electricity generation. Nonetheless, there has been a hugely positive response to the BEIS report's ' ndings from many parts of the industry, as well as from scien- tists who view the capturing of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants as a vital tool in the battle against global warming. Energy network operators, already campaigning to play a key role in facilitating the UK's future energy system, were quick to welcome the committee's stance. The Energy Networks Association (ENA) said CCUS deployment was critical to "tackling our greatest decarbonisation challenges" and providing "a whole-systems approach". Others have urged the government to just "hurry up and make its mind up". CCUS needs strong and consistent support to attract investment and demonstrate that it can be deployed at scale, and the government has long been criticised for its start-stop backing. Energy has always been a complex decision-making landscape. Now, thanks to the pressing urgency of climate change and relentless pressure from environmentalists, it has also become a highly charged one. Suzanne Heneghan, acting editor, suzanneheneghan@fav-house.com

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