Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 31ST JANUARY - 6TH FEBRUARY 2020 | 5 WATER PR19: Severn Trent accepts determination Severn Trent has become the first water company to announce its acceptance of Ofwat's final determi- nation amid sector-wide specula- tion over which companies may seek a referral to the Competition and Markets Authority. The company said it accepted the PR19 determination based on the "in the round" approach taken by Ofwat and the totex allowance for the next five years being in line with Severn Trent's own business plan. It added that the expected regulatory capital value real growth rate of 3.8 per cent created long- term value for shareholders. It accepted the flooding measures outlined by Ofwat, which it said were "significantly more stretching" than it proposed and likely to result in penalties. In its Q3 trading update, the company said that for the quarter to 28 January 2020: "We continue to benefit from the efficiencies we have delivered in AMP6, putting us on the right cost run rates for AMP7. Our capital programme is now in its final stages with the Birmingham Resilience Programme due to complete construction in March." ELECTRICITY ENA consults on 2020 workplan for Open Networks project The Energy Networks Association (ENA) has launched a consultation on the 2020 workplan for its Open Networks project, which aims to facilitate decarbonisation by mak- ing the energy system smarter and more flexible. Randolph Brazier, head of inno- vation and development at the ENA, said the organisation was planning to shiš its focus during 2020 towards standardisation – an issue raised by Ofgem in an open letter to the ENA last July – and increasing participation: "That's ultimately what industry wants and that's going to help us bring liquidity into these new types of markets." He said the experience for provid- ers requires further improvement "from the initial visibility of network constraints and network issues, right through to the reporting and checks on what we actually did; what we dispatched". Currently, flexibility markets are still "fairly nascent" and suffer from low liquidity in many places. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 17 March. Rachel Reeves has been re-elected unopposed to chair the BEIS (Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) select committee and Greg Clark is in the running to head up the Commons science committee. Reeves, who was shadow pensions secretary under Ed Miliband, has been BEIS committee chair since the 2017 general election. The BEIS select committee chairmanship is one of nine retained by Labour since the election. Utility Week Investor Summit 2020 Book your place now at the only pan-utility conference to bring together key speakers and figures from government, regulation, investment and utilities, who will assess the impact of Brexit, regulation, M&A activity, infrastructure, legitimacy and climate change on future investment. It takes place on 5 March in London. For more details visit https://event.utilityweek.co.uk/investor £10m The government has doubled the funding available to local authorities to install electric vehicle charging points on the streets. "Even if you stick with 2050, you will have a hell of a job to turn around this economy" Climate change adviser professor Jim Watson defends the government's 2050 net zero target as already being very ambitious. THE TOP 10 COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST RENEWABLE ENERGY CONSUMPTION PERCENTAGE With growing international pressure on countries to increase renewable energy consumption and reduce their ecological impact on the planet, new figures from price comparison expert Compare the Market reveal which nations are leading the way in using energy from more sustainable resources. The company analysed 21 countries to reveal the top 10 using the highest percentage of renewable sources, with Europe coming out as the best-performing continent. Rank Country Total supply Renewables 1 Germany 12.74% 2 UK 11.05% 3 Sweden 10.96% 4 Spain 10.17% 5 Italy 8.8% 6 Brazil 7.35% 7 Japan 5.3% 8 Turkey 5.25% 9 Australia 4.75% 10 USA 4.32%

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