Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 3RD - 9TH MAY 2019 | 5 Octopus Energy for Business has partnered with Lime to supply the bike rental company's warehouses with renewable energy. The warehouses are used to charge batteries for Lime's electric-assisted bikes, which can last up to 48 hours, and are regularly replaced by Lime's London team. WATER Thames director is appointed MOSL chief executive Thames Water's director of strategic planning and invest- ment, Sarah McMath, has been appointed chief executive of the water retail market opera- tor MOSL. McMath has worked at Thames Water for 24 years in a variety of roles, having led teams of up to 2,000 people across several tech- nical, asset management, strategy and operational departments. MOSL's board has been on the hunt for a permanent chief execu- tive since the sudden departure of Chris Scoggins in November 2018. Des Burke, who was appointed interim chief executive in Decem- ber, will leave the company at the end of May. McMath will assume her responsibilities in early June. WATER Water sector 'will triple leakage reduction rates' The water industry has pledged to triple leakage reduction rates by 2030, as part of a new sector-wide initiative to work in the public interest. The pledge was made in trade body Water UK's new public interest commitment published last week, which lists a number of goals the water sector will work towards. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 2019 2021 2023 2025 2027 2029 2031 2033 2035 2037 2039 GW Wales Scotland Northern Ireland England Two-thirds of UK onshore wind set to retire More than 8GW – or two-thirds – of the nearly 13GW of existing onshore wind capacity in the UK is facing retirement by 2040, Renewable UK has warned in a new report. The trade association has urged the government to work with local authorities to support the repowering of old windfarms and prevent "a backsliding of progress against our carbon budgets". Renewable UK has modelled three different scenarios for the future repowering of windfarms – optimal, intermediate and low – reflecting variables such as the likelihood of generators applying to repower their sites and the success rate of planning applications. It says using newer, larger turbines to repower windfarms could increase capacity by 4GW on today's levels. Falling onshore wind operational capacity per UK country "Automatic compensation payments should serve as an incentive for suppliers to raise their game and get switches right first time" Rob Salter-Church, director, retail systems transformation at Ofgem, as the regulator's measures for switching problems came into force. 5 Five bidders are thought to still be in contention to buy Electricity North West. 34,000 Yorkshire Water plans to install 34,000 acoustic microphones, or loggers, in its pipe network. 3% Igloo Energy says it will cut prices by an average of 3 per cent, fol- lowing a 2.6 per cent cut in March.

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