Utility Week

"A poll tax on the poor" Tim Roache, general secretary of the GMB union, calls for subsidies for renewable energy to be financed through general taxation rather than from consumer bills. UTILITY WEEK | 20TH - 26TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | 5 ACT plans far-reaching electrification The Australian Capital Territory plans to phase out natural gas, elec- trify its bus fleets and public school buildings, and introduce incentives for drivers who buy electric cars. The ACT government announced its climate strategy for 2019-25 with several nation-first policies it said would further the territory's "global leading climate efforts". The ACT chief minister Andrew Barr said the plan had significant environmental objectives as the territory moved to cut emissions by 50-60 per cent on 1990 levels by 2025, and transition to net zero emissions by 2045. The Guardian, 16 September Japanese minister: 'ditch nuclear power' Japan's new environment minister has wasted no time in contradicting the government's long-standing policy on nuclear power, using his first press conference to declare that he intends to scrap the nation's atomic energy plants. Appointed last week, Shinjiro Koizumi told his inaugural press conference that nuclear power has been one of his concerns since a magnitude 9 earthquake and a subsequent tsunami caused the meltdown of three of the six reac- tors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in March 2011. The Telegraph, 12 September Nord Stream 2 'a threat to energy security' Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a press confer- ence that Poland and Lithuania consider the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project a threat to energy security in central and eastern Europe. The Nord Stream 2 project will double Russia's capacity for piping gas across the Baltic Sea to Germany. Reuters, 17 September Around the world National Grid has completed a 5km tunnel under the Humber using its 160m-long tunnel boring machine Mary (pictured being transported to the shaft). The project took 18 months to complete and involved the excavation of 160,000 tonnes of material. The tunnel is the first dug under the Humber and when commissioned will transport a quarter of the UK's gas supplies. STORY BY NUMBERS Small supplier complaints Energy Ombuds- man statistics about the com- plaints it processed last year reveal a rise in complaints against small suppliers. 45% of all complaints resolved were about smaller suppliers, whereas traditionally the "vast majority" related to the big six. >60% of the complaints the Ombudsman received in the last year were about billing. ELECTRICITY Dale Vince in Brexit legal challenge to Boris Dale Vince, chief executive of renewable energy supplier Ecotricity, has filed a legal challenge in a bid to ensure Boris Johnson seeks an extension to Article 50 if an agreement with the EU is not reached. Speaking to Utility Week, Vince con- firmed he had filed the case in a Scottish court on 12 September and that it was being headed by Jo Maugham QC of the Good Law Project. If successful, the case will result in the prime minister making a commitment to abide by the law and write to the EU seeking an extension to Article 50 if a Brexit agreement is not accepted by MPs. If he refuses to do this, the ultimate sanction will be for the court to use its powers to send the letter on his behalf. Johnson has already vowed to defy any order to seek an extension. 5 down? Ben Bugg, senior manager at Bfy Consulting, predicts that five more suppliers will fail before the end of the year. Speaking at a seminar in London, he said supplier failures thus far had cost creditors £78 million (excluding Renewables Obligation Certificates and feed-in tariffs). $70 $60 $50 15 August 15 September Oil shock: the price of Brent crude soared 20 per cent to more than $70 a barrel at one point last week after a missile attack on an oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, blamed on Iran.

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