Utility Week

Utility Week 11th October 2019

Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government

Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1175106

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 12 of 31

UTILITY WEEK | 11TH - 17TH OCTOBER 2019 | 13 Finance & Investment Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has placed up to £57.8 mil- lion of new shares – 56.2 million at a price of 103 pence each. Since its creation, the fund has raised almost £165 mil- lion from investors, including £100 million through its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in November and £15.3 million in a second issuance in July. ENERGY Gresham House Energy Storage Fund announces £58m share offer It will use the money for a pipeline of projects being devel- oped exclusively for the fund by its manager Gresham House and Noriker Power. Subject to the successful commissioning and purchase of the projects, some of which are already under construction, the firm expects to have 229MW of operational assets by the end of the first quarter of 2020. Gresham House is also scop- ing out a further four opera- tional energy storage facilities with a combined capacity of 95MW, and has six projects in development with a total capac- ity of 240MW. John Leggate, chairman of Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, said: "The continuing shi˜ towards a reduced carbon national energy portfolio Pennon dismisses claims of break-up Waste management business is performing 'exceptionally well' after period of investment Pennon has dismissed reports that it intends to break off the waste management arm of its business. Chris Loughlin, chief execu- tive at Pennon Group, told Utility Week that Viridor was perform- ing "exceptionally well" and the idea that the companies were to be split up was pure speculation. He said the group had gone through a phase of investment to add 11 large energy recovery facilities across the country. "We have invested between £1.5 bil- lion and £2 billion in facilities across the country and those are now coming online and starting to generate strong revenues and it's time to start thinking about what the next phase is for Pennon." The waste management business was formerly a part of South West Water but was renamed as it grew to be the largest UK recycler and UK-owned energy recovery infrastructure player. "In our trading statement we said it's time for a stra- tegic review," he said. "We simply announced it's time to take stock, as we routinely do, and think through the future for the business." Meanwhile South West Water is preparing to launch a customer share scheme called Water Share Plus from April next year. Loughlin said if the company outper- formed on its regulatory targets, each customer would receive a share in the company, entitling them to attend AGMs and have a voice in the running of the company. "We give them a stake and a voice," Loughlin explained. "It taps into some emotions of why people think there is merit in renationalisation: is it 'our water company' and is it serving the needs of local people and communities." RW WATER First reservoir contract in 30 years Portsmouth Water has awarded a design services contract to Atkins as principal designer before work starts on its Havant Thicket winter storage facility – the first reservoir to be built in the UK since 1989. Planning permission will be sought next year and work will start on the £106 million project the following year. It is expected to be completed by 2030. Flora and fauna from the site will be re-homed before the embankment can be built. A˜er that it is expected to take three years to fill the reservoir. Bob Taylor, chief executive at Portsmouth Water, said the res- ervoir was being built in Havant, which has an abundance of water from about 50 spring sources, to supply to neighbouring Southern Water. Taylor said Portsmouth will export 20-25 per cent of its water to Southern by 2030. The two companies entered a bulk supply agreement allow- ing a transfer of 15 million litres of water from Portsmouth to Southern a˜er the latter had to reduce abstraction from the Riv- ers Itchen and Test. The river flows through both companies' catchment areas but from an environmental perspec- tive it is preferable to abstract water from downstream rather than upstream. This resulted in changes to Southern's abstrac- tion licence, and it had to find other water sources. Taylor said feasibility studies and ground investigations are taking place on the site while both companies are negotiating terms and regulatory structure with Ofwat. He added that the regulator has been "very sup- portive" of the plans as a "good example of collaboration and innovation in action". ENERGY Drax power plant plans approved The government has given the go-ahead to Drax's plans to convert two coal-fired genera- tion units at its power station in north Yorkshire to gas-fired generation. The company has already converted four of the plant's six coal units to use biomass. The proposals comprise up to four new combined cycle gas turbines (two each for units 5 and 6), each powering a dedi- cated generator of up to 600MW in capacity. Once re-powered, both units would have a gross electrical output capacity of up to 1,800MW. Drax has also proposed constructing a 200MW battery storage facility. Last year, the planning inspectorate recommended that the project be refused because it would contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. However, the government ruled that gas-fired units would emit less carbon dioxide than coal-fired ones and some fossil fuel generation capacity is needed to back up intermittent renewables capacity. Loughlin: break-up claims are 'pure speculation' urgently demands more utility- scale batteries. The National Grid outage on 9 August provided confirmatory evidence that investment in energy stor- age is key to the security of this vital element of the UK's critical national infrastructure." If the latest share issuance is fully subscribed, it will bring the total capital raised by the fund to nearly £223 million. This week

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Utility Week - Utility Week 11th October 2019