Utility Week

4 | 6TH - 12TH MARCH 2020 | UTILITY WEEK Seven days... Anglian Water co-owner eyes EfW The co-owner of Anglian Water has emerged as a contender in a £1.5 billion race to buy a company that generates power by burning rubbish. First State Investments, an Australian fund manager that last year sold Electricity North West, wants to buy Wheelabrator's UK arm, according to City sources. The division has been put up for sale by its owner, Macquarie. Sources said Credit Suisse has been hired to run the auction. Bids for the firm are expected to range from £1 billion to £1.5 billion, with the process believed to be at an early stage. The Telegraph SNP must learn from collapse of Our Power Calls have been made for an inquiry into the collapse of an energy company backed by the Scottish government. Our Power Energy Supply, which was based in Edinburgh and had 31,000 customers, had £9.8 mil- lion in loans from the government and went into administration last January. Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said that without an inquiry a public energy company planned by the SNP could repeat its mistakes. The Times Coronavirus could hit COP26 Concern is growing among cam- paigners that vital UN climate talks will be derailed by the coronavirus outbreak, while government offi- cials are working to find ways round the problem. The COP26 summit – scheduled for Glasgow this November – is seen as one of the last chances to put nations back on track to avoid climate breakdown. The Guardian Press roundup BEIS proposes new pot structure for CfD auctions Onshore wind and solar projects will be allowed to bid for con- tracts for difference (CfDs) for the first time in many years aer the government confirmed plans to hold an auction for more established "Pot 1" technologies in 2021. This is in addition to the Pot 2 auction for less established technologies that was already expected next year as part of the fourth competitive allocation round. In a consultation published on 2 March, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) proposed a series of other changes to the scheme, including the creation of a separate pot for offshore wind. The document welcomed the emergence of subsidy-free onshore wind and solar projects due to falling costs, but said there is a risk these technologies will not proliferate at a sufficient rate without price support. "We expect that some of these technologies have the lowest costs and would be able to secure CfDs at strike prices below the average expected wholesale price for electricity, and so over the course of a contract may pay back as much, or more, than they receive in CfD top-up payments," it explained. "Therefore, running an allocation round in 2021 which includes established technolo- gies will help deliver a diverse generation mix at low cost, as well as give a clearer signal of the costs of these technologies." Despite also seeing large cost reductions in recent years, with a number of projects securing contracts at prices of around £40/MWh (2012 prices) in the third allocation round in 2019, BEIS decided against moving offshore wind to Pot 1 or holding technology-neutral auctions. It worried that this would allow the lowest cost technolo- gies to dominate the auctions, halting the success of tech- nologies that are currently more expensive but will eventually become cheaper with further deployment. However, the consultation likewise raised concerns that offshore wind could do the same within Pot 2, and therefore proposed to create a third pot specifically for offshore wind. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 22 May. TG "There is no doubt that the current civil nuclear programme is in complete disarray" Lord West of Spithead attacked the government's attitude to the nuclear industry in the House of Lords, prompting government chief whip Baroness Bloomfield to reveal that the Energy White Paper would be published "at the end of this quarter". STORY BY NUMBERS Public parks as a potential energy source Greenspace Scot- land surveyed 3,500 sites in Scotland to gauge their potential to host low-carbon energy resources to help the country meet its target of reducing emissions to net zero by 2045. 4.5TWh Amount of electricity that ground source heat pumps in Scottish public parks could supply each year. 15% Percentage of demand from Scottish households this would meet. 4.9TWh Amount of power that could be generated each year by ground- mounted solar panels covering 20 per cent of the available land. Rooftop solar could contribute 150GWh.

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