Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 10TH - 16TH JANUARY 2020 | 5 PAN-UTILITY Sandys and Cox among New Year's Honours recipients Laura Sandys and Jonson Cox are among the sector grandees to be included in the Queen's New Year's Honours List. Sandys, chair of the Energy Data Taskforce, and Ofwat chairman Cox, both received CBEs. Other familiar names on the Honours List include Committee on Climate Change's former chief economist Adrian Gault and the Energy Saving Trust's chief executive Philip Sellwood, who both received CBEs. Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, was awarded a DBE for services to the public and voluntary sector. Meanwhile, Renewable Energy Assurance Limited's chief executive, Virginia Graham, received an OBE for pro- moting renewable energy, and SP Energy Networks' future networks manager, James Yu, has been given an MBE for services to the electricity supply industry and innovation. Energy UK's special adviser Barbara Vest, who also chairs the National Grid Joint European Stakeholder Group, was honoured with an OBE. ENERGY Snowdrop Energy finally has its licence revoked Snowdrop Energy has finally had its licence revoked by Ofgem, more than 12 months a'er transferring all its customers to fellow challenger brand Nabuh. The revocation will take effect from 14 January. Ofgem has the power to revoke the licence of a supplier where it has either failed to begin operations within a year of the licence taking effect or where it has ceased to supply customers. Snowdrop transferred around 6,000 customers to Nabuh in October 2018. ELECTRICITY Matthew Wright to step down at Ørsted Matthew Wright, the UK managing director of Ørsted, is leaving the company on 1 February. He was previously chief execu- tive of Southern Water and joined Ørsted in June 2017. In a statement, the company said it was dispensing with the role of UK managing director because of an "evolution of Ørsted's business strategy" as a result of the increas- ing role of offshore wind in the UK. Duncan Clark will be appointed to a new role as head of region, UK, and will "hold an end-to-end accountability for the offshore wind value chain in the UK". His experi- ence in the offshore wind industry includes programme director of Ørsted's Hornsea One and Two. £100bn Amount promised in the Queen's Speech for national infrastructure over the next five years. Sajid Javid's first budget is due on 11 March. One of Thames Water's most spectacular structures – usually hidden under ancient woodland in London – was revealed in all its glory during maintenance work last month. High Beech, an underground reservoir in the middle of Epping Forest, was built in 1887 and stores 10 million litres of treated water. It is 4m deep and covers an area of 2,800m 2 . The arched Victorian structure was drained before Christmas to allow engineers to carry out £100,000-worth of maintenance. How UK energy prices compare with Europe Breeze takes supplier failures last year to nine Challenger supplier Breeze Energy became the ninth energy retailer to exit the market in 2019. Breeze, which had just under 18,000 domestic customers, entered the supplier of last resort process on 18 December. The supplier was subject to a provisional order from Ofgem a'er failing to pay more than £486,000 in Renewables Obligation payments. It also owed more than £500,000 in capacity market payments. Jonson Cox Laura Sandys

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