Utility Week

4 | 7TH - 13TH JUNE 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Seven days... Gazprom is Russia's highest valued firm Russian gas giant Gazprom on Monday became the country's top publicly traded company by market capitalisation aer its shares shot up to their highest level since 2008, driven by a new dividend policy. The state-owned firm's shares rose 12 per cent on Monday, peaking at Rbs241.65 ($3.68) on the Moscow Stock Exchange. Gazprom's share price has risen sharply since mid- May, when it recommended more than doubling dividend payments compared with the previous year. Financial Times, 3 June Nuclear doesn't add up without carbon price Australia would need to adopt a carbon price for nuclear power to be economically viable, a peak lobby group for the sector says, as it wel- comes a push by the Nationals for a fresh Senate inquiry into the idea. The Australian Nuclear Associa- tion said nuclear power would only be cost competitive with gas and coal generation if pollution was priced. "They [reactors] don't stack up… unless you have direct govern- ment intervention or a carbon price," vice president, Robert Parker, said. The Guardian, 3 June Gas permit promotes 'molecules of freedom' The Energy Department has approved an LNG project in Texas, saying it would allow "molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world". It said the permit for the expansion of the Freeport, Texas, facility "is critical to spreading free- dom gas throughout the world". "I don't think this goes far enough," Jason Bordoff, of Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy, wrote on Twitter. He wryly urged the Energy Information Admin- istration to "change its monthly data metric from million cubic feet to molecules of US freedom". The Washington Post, 29 May National media Two energy suppliers in breach of competition law E nergy suppliers Economy Energy and E (Gas and Electricity), along with consultancy firm Dyball Associ- ates, breached competition law, Ofgem has found. The three companies have collectively been fined £870,000 by the regu- lator a-er they infringed chapter one of the Competition Act 1998. Ofgem has confirmed that between January and September 2016, Economy Energy, E (Gas and Electricity) and Dyball Asso- ciates had an anti-competitive agreement preventing the two suppliers actively targeting one another's customers through face-to-face sales. The two sup- pliers were found to have shared commercially sensitive informa- tion in the form of customer meter point details. Dyball Associates aided this arrangement by designing, implementing and maintaining so-ware systems that allowed customer meter point details to be shared and recruitment of each other's customers to be blocked, the regulator said. Ofgem fined E (Gas and Elec- tricity) £650,000 and Economy Energy £200,000 (the latter fine reflecting Economy Energy's financial position, including that it is in administration). Dyball Associates was fined £20,000 for acting as a facilitator. The majority of both suppli- ers' customers were on prepay- ment meters. Ofgem said such customers are less likely to switch than those on standard meters and therefore more likely to be on a more expensive deal. Anthony Pygram, director of conduct and enforcement at Ofgem, said: "Anti-competitive agreements are a serious breach of competition law and could cause widespread detriment and harm to consumers. "E and Economy Energy agreed not to target each other's customers with the assistance of Dyball Associates, leaving some customers potentially worse off by being unable to access deals from the other supplier." KP "Hosting COP26 would demonstrate the importance the UK places on the issue of climate change and show that we want to act now and lead the way" Pauline Walsh, chief executive of Affinity Water, pledging her support for the UK's bid to host the 2020 UN Conference of the Parties climate conference (COP26). STORY BY NUMBERS Smart meter rollout slows Statistics for Q1 2019 from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy show that smart meter installation rates continue to fall. 1m From January to the end of March, just over a million smart meters were installed by large energy suppliers. 457,900 Of all the installations, 457,900 were gas smart meters. 573,700 were for electric- ity smart meters. 6.7% This is a 6.7 per cent fall from the previous quarter. 17% It also represents a 17 per cent drop compared with the same period in 2018.

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