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UTILITY WEEK | DECEMBER 2020 | 15 Build Back Better continued overleaf Kwarteng: I don't see the problem on returns In his keynote address at the forum, BEIS energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng rebutted suggestions that investors will be put off UK energy infrastruc- ture by Ofgem's drive to curb network returns. Kwarteng was quizzed over con- cerns that Ofgem's RIIO2 price control review is not offering sufficient returns to incentivise future investment. He said "I don't agree that we don't have the means to attract that invest- ment. I am confident they [Ofgem] will reach a settlement where we can attract capital. "If you look at the past ten years, nobody thought we would get where we are today. Costs have fallen much faster and steeper than anticipated. "I don't think the investment propo- sition is unattractive, it is actually very attractive and people will continue to invest in UK offshore wind because we have the rules and regulation and structures. I don't see the problem." Kwarteng also told Utility Week that the government is "absolutely" com- mitted to giving local authorities more powers to help ena- ble the transition to net-zero emissions. He said: "We won't get to net zero simply through government action. The only way to get to net zero is through buy-in across society. "It requires a degree of local devo- lution to come together to reach the goals we want to see. I don't see a con- flict between national infrastructure policy and enthusiasm of local govern- ment and people on the ground." The minister added that the public, particularly younger people, increas- ingly see decarbonisation as a source of economic opportunity, rather than a cost to society. In his address, Kwarteng said heavy investment in large-scale battery and storage technologies will enable the UK to retain much of the capacity gen- erated by offshore wind farms. And the government hopes to quadruple employment in green econ- omy jobs by the end of the current decade Anderson takes aim at 'greenwashing' Scottish Power chief executive Keith Anderson criticised "unsustainable business models" in the energy retail sector and called for greater trans- parency over how suppliers source their electricity to bring an end to "greenwashing". "Right now – today – we're at a strange place," he said. "There's this annual ritual we've got into where we're watching a number of suppliers who have been running what I would describe as unsustainable business models going to the wall and going bust as their Roc [Renewable Energy Certificate] payments become due. "They've been hit with this bill we all knew was coming and yet again we're seeing a number of these compa- nies actually going into administration on the back of the fact that they can't pay their bills. They're not sustainable and the rest are having to pick up the tab for it. It's a strange process and unique to the energy sector and I don't honestly think it would be tolerated in any other industry in the UK." He continued: "The bottom line is customers should be able to trust in their supplier. They should trust in the integrity of the service they receive and to do that we need have transparency – real transpar- ency – about what suppliers do, how suppliers work, the cost of the service, and going forward, really critical to that is how green is the energy cus- tomers are actually receiving." Anderson said the economy cannot be decarbonised without significant investment in, among other things, renewables, the electricity network and storage: "That's what delivers green electricity; not trading bits of paper; not trading certificates." He also forecast growing public disquiet over "what's getting called greenwashing". "For me, being cleaner and much more clinical about what's green and what's not green is a really, really important part of building back better, and that is really long overdue for our sector," he concluded. nities, regions and the nation in the corona- virus recovery. While much of this talk was broad brush, there were some pragmatic nuggets in there too. The CEOs of Western Power Distribu- tion and South East Water – Phil Swi and David Hinton – discussed the ways in which a new sense of place in their communities will influence their future approaches to targeting and delivering innovation. Mean- while, Northern Gas Network's CEO Mark Horsley said he will be looking into what can be done to lower qualification barriers to entry for apprenticeships in order to ensure his gas network remains an accessible career destination for a generation of young people whose educations have been derailed. Of course, knitting tightly into all the discussion about utilities' role in the Build Back Better agenda was the issue of climate change and the need for our economic recov- ery from the pandemic to also be a green one. While this was unanimously agreed to be non-negotiable, it is clear there are some complex questions to be answered around where stimulus and support should be tar- geted first to produce the best combination in association with