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UTILITY WEEK | NOVEMBER 2020 | 7 The Month in Review "For the size of the market it is horribly complicated, so we need to make sure customers can understand the structure." Sarah McMath, chief executive of non-domestic water market operator, MOSL Pollution incidents 'worst since 2011' English water companies scored the worst results in the Environment Agency's environmental performance assessment (EPA) since 2011, in an update published at the start of October. Southern rated as poor while Anglian, Northumbrian and South West all received two-star ratings, signalling improvement is needed. Thames and United Utilities received three stars while Severn Trent and Wessex led the industry with four. The annual report showed the sector has fallen short of performance expectations set in 2013, with pollution inci- dents rising to 1,952 in 2019, up from 1,623 the year before. The number of serious incidents (category 1 and 2) declined from 56 to 52 but remains above the target of zero by 2020. Anglian, Northumbrian and Thames all reported a year-on-year increase in serious incidents. Serious incidents reported at clean water assets halved to four, but the number of category 1 major incidents rose from nine to 11. Pollu- tion events at sewerage assets remained flat at 48 with most happening at Anglian's (12) and Thames' (15) assets. Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the EA, said water compa- nies will be required to publish and implement specific pol- lution reduction plans by the end of this year. She implied the EA is underfunded in its efforts to address and clean up the more than 240,000km of rivers in England, each of which is allocated just £62 of annual funding. The EPA was introduced by the EA in 2011 to compare performance between water companies over time, measur- ing performance on pollution incidents, compliance with discharge permits for sewage and water treatment works and track progress on delivery of improvement schemes as well as to monitor security of supply. Environmental Audit Com- mittee chair Philip Dunne said the "damming report" painted a bleak picture of the state of UK water companies and implored them to take urgent steps to improve. "The performance of certain water companies is simply not good enough," said Dunne. "There seems to be a level of com- placency resulting in terribly poor performance. All water companies must crack down on pollution." MPs launch inquiry into heat The distribution of environmental levies between electricity and gas customers will come under the spotlight as part of a wider probe by MPs into the government's heat and buildings strategy. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) select committee launched an inquiry into the government's Buildings and Heat Strategy, which is due to be published in November. As part of this inquiry, the com- mittee will examine the distribution of environmental levies across electricity, gas and fuel bills and whether they should be reviewed. It will also look into what must be done to overcome the barriers to scaling up low-carbon heating technologies and how the costs of decarbonising heat can be distrib- uted fairly across consumers, tax- payers, business and government, taking account of fuel poverty. And the investigation will look at which technologies are best for delivering decarbonised heating. The committee is also seek- ing views on what should be the priorities and timescales for the government's heat policy. In the days following the announcement of the inquiry, the UK Energy Research Centre released a paper claiming that existing domestic heat policy falls short of delivering against the UK's net zero ambitions. It found that without additional policy intervention, the govern - ment's Clean Heat Grant proposals seem likely to maintain a "flat" heat pump market while that for boilers continues to grow. It says that fossil fuel heating systems need to be replaced in at least 10 million homes by 2035 to stay on target to meet net zero. £65m The amount of charges deferred by network companies as part of a three-month Covid support package for energy suppliers and shippers £34m Amount owed to Ofgem in Renewables Obligation and feed-in tariff scheme payments by seven suppliers, as of the beginning of October. News in brief GMB Union has called on Centrica to permanently take the option to "fire and rehire" employees off the table after the British Gas owner postponed its proposals until January 2021. In return, trade unions have agreed not to ballot for industrial action in October – while Centrica seeks to find a negoti- ated agreement. In July Centrica issued HR1 and S.188 notices, which allow it, in a "last resort", to terminate workers' contracts and issue new ones with updated terms and conditions. In the previous month the company said it would be undertaking a major restructure in which 5,000 jobs, the majority of which are managerial roles, would be cut. The Women in Utilities Network (WUN) has urged utility companies not to use the pandemic as an excuse to hide their gender pay gap data. The group called on the sector to publish data for 2019/20 despite government suspending the requirement to do so. Report- ing the data became a requirement for companies with more than 250 staff from 2017. Affinity Water has committed to stop abstracting water from chalk streams by ceasing to take from the River Chess in the Chilterns with immediate effect. Across its supply area, the company will work to cut groundwater abstraction in the Ver, Mimram, Upper Lea and Misbourne catchments by 2024. Following years of investigation and trials with stakeholders includ- ing the Environment Agency (EA) and conservation groups, Affinity undertook a pilot earlier this year to understand the impact of reduc- ing borehole abstraction on water supply. Octopus Energy has entered the US market with the acquisition of Evolve Energy, a Texas and Silicon Valley-based startup for $5 million. The business will be known as Octopus Energy US and the com- pany aims for its Kraken platform to eventually have a presence in all 50 states, targeting 25 million US accounts by 2027.