Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 13TH - 19TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | 15 Policy & Regulation This week Gas price 'spoofing' costs Engie £2.1m Trader manipulated prices in 2016 by placing bids with no intention of executing them Engie Global Markets has been fined £2.1 million by Ofgem aer one its traders was found to have engaged in "spoofing" to manipulate wholesale gas prices and increase profits over a three- month period between June and August 2016. Spoofing refers to the practice of placing bids or offers with no intention of executing them. Ofgem launched an investigation aer a market participant alerted it to suspicious activity on the whole market in November 2016. The regulator found that a number of bids and offers for month-ahead gas contracts breached Article 5 of the EU's Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency. It found no evidence of more widespread market manipulation on the part of Engie Global Markets. However, the regulator said the company failed to take appropriate measures to prevent or detect the breach. Those it did have were inadequate at the time. Ofgem said the firm has fully co-operated with its investigation and since August 2016 has taken steps to prevent this happening again, for example, by increas- ing surveillance of its traders' activities. By settling the investigation early, the company has qualified for a 30 per cent discount from the proposed penalty of roughly £3 million. Ofgem chief executive Dermot Nolan said: "This investigation demonstrates Ofgem's commitment to monitoring wholesale energy markets in Great Britain and ensuring their integrity on behalf of consumers." TG ELECTRICITY EV charging point plans 'unclear' The government has been accused of failing to be clear about its plans to roll out electric vehicle charging points. Norman Lamb MP, chair of the House of Commons science and technology committee, was speaking during a parliamentary debate on his committee's report on the clean growth strategy, and said that sufficient charging points are required together with stronger financial incentives. Aer outlining his com- mittee's recommendation that EV charging points should be much more widely available and interoperable, he said: "There is not yet clarity on the rollout of charging points. Other countries, such as Norway, are well ahead of us in achieving that. In order to encourage people to buy electric, we have to assure them that they will be able to recharge without difficulty." The Liberal Democrat, who has announced he is retiring as an MP at the next election, said there must also be a national discussion about moving to a transport system that does not rely on mass car ownership. He made his comments on the same day as the publication of new SMMT figures showing that 3,147 purely battery pow- ered EVs were sold in August, up 659 on the same month last year. ELECTRICITY Residual network charging plan refined Ofgem has published refined proposals for its planned over- haul of residual network charges aer stakeholders expressed concerns about its minded-to decision in late 2018. The regulator said it will hold a further consultation on the plans and make a final decision within the next two months. Ofgem's preferred option is to recover residual costs through fixed charges levied solely on end users. It compares the approach to the line rental model for telephone landlines. The charges would be set by customer segment, with non- domestic users being divided according to the ten existing line-loss factor classes. Most respondents to the ini- tial consultation supported fixed charges on consumers. However, a number also felt that the sug- gested customer segments for non-domestic users were too narrow to reflect their diversity. So Ofgem has suggested that they be divided into 15 segments set in terms of agreed capacity for users at higher voltages and net volume for low-voltage users. As in the original proposals, residual charges would be appor- tioned between voltage levels based on the total contribution of users at the relevant level to net volumes on each network. Nolan: Ofgem is 'ensuring integrity' of markets Political Agenda David Blackman "Tory MPs are stampeding to announce they are leaving" An election hasn't even been called yet, but Conservative MPs are stampeding to announce that they will be leaving the House of Commons when the showdown does take place. Some, like ex-water minister Richard Benyon, are leaving Parliament aer having the whip withdrawn aer backing moves to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Two former energy ministers, Sir Michael Fallon and Claire Perry, insist they are in synch with the prime minister's deter- UK's commitment to maintain a level playing field on environ- mental regulations in a revised withdrawal agreement. This is what worries those who believe Brexit is driven by a desire to deregulate the economy to give the UK a competitive advantage over its neighbours. This matters because the Conservatives remain in pole position to form the next govern- ment. The rowdy scenes on Mon- day night look like a harbinger for a less polite politics. mination to get the UK out of the EU by the end of next month. The departure of figures like Perry is likely to leave the centre- right's ranks in the Conserva- tive party depleted. And this constituency supported David Cameron's Vote Blue, Go Green strategy when he was seeking to return the Tories to government. Of course, MPs like recently appointed junior treasury min- ister Simon Clarke and former London mayoral candidate Zack Goldsmith back Johnson and are committed supporters of efforts to battle climate change. But according to reports last week, the UK's EU negotiators were seeking to water down the

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