Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | NOVEMBER 2021 | 7 The Month in Review Supplier exodus continues As Utility Week went to press, a further four energy suppli- ers had exited the market in October, meaning there have been 16 failures in 2021 so far. The latest entrant to the Supplier of Last Resort pro- cess was GoTo Energy, with 22,000 domestic customers. It was ranked number one in the latest Citizens Advice star ratings table, receiving a total rating of 4.25 out of 5. GoTo followed the failures of app-based supplier Pure Planet, Colorado Energy and Daligas, with their combined 259,000 customers moving over to Shell Energy. In a statement announc- ing its collapse, Pure Planet's founders said the energy price cap had forced retailers to absorb unsustainable dif- ferences between rocketing wholesale costs and the lim- its on what customer can be charged. See analysis, p12-13 Adapt or die: the EA's stark message The Environment Agency (EA) has warned that sig- nificant climate impacts are now inevitable, meaning everyone's thinking and action must change faster than the climate. In the EA's third climate adaptation report to government, it said England must "adapt or die" and as much focus must be given to this as reducing emissions. The report noted that flood and coastal risks, water management, freshwater wildlife and industrial regulation would be particularly affected. It stated that more extreme weather leading to increased flooding, drought, sea level rises up to 78cm by the 2080s and a deficit of 3.4 billion litres of water by the 2050s must be addressed. EA chair Emma Howard Boyd said: "Significant climate impacts are inevitable. We can success- fully tackle the climate emergency if we do the right things, but we are running out of time to implement effective adaptation measures. Our thinking must change faster than the climate." The report said despite measures that have been put in place more work was urgently needed. It set out five "climate realities" that are galvanising the agency to change how it works: • The EA alone cannot protect everyone from increasing flood and coastal risks so communities must do their bit. • Climate change makes it harder to ensure clean and plentiful water. • Regulation is not yet ready for a changing climate. It said the burden of emergency response will increasingly divert resources from other activities. • Ecosystems cannot adapt as fast as the climate is changing. • There will be more and worse environmental incidents. The EA's adaptation approach emphasised the urgency of action required. It noted that investment will be required from both public and private sources. Howard Boyd added: "Adaptation action needs to be integral to government, businesses and com- munities too and people will soon question why it isn't – especially when it is much cheaper to invest early in climate resilience than to live with the costs of inaction." Improvements to river quality made by water companies in recent years have been "eaten up" by agriculture, one com- pany chief has told MPs during a hearing on river health. The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) took evidence from the CEOs of Northumbrian, Severn Trent, Southern, South West and Thames on the sector's work addressing pollution in riv- ers and waterways. Liv Garfield, head of Severn Trent, said her company had been consistently improving the health of waterways, but other contributors in catchments were having a detrimental effect. "While the water sector has improved year on year for the past few years, all that gap has been eaten up by agriculture, so our rivers have gotten no better quality – we're plateauing. The contribution from agriculture has swallowed the investment spend by the water sector," Gar- field explained. Previous sessions of the EAC heard that river monitoring by the Environment Agency is inad- equate, partly due to funding cuts. All of the heads said their companies had, or were close, to complete coverage of com- bined sewer overflows (CSOs) with event duration monitors, although it was acknowledged these do not measure quantities. The upcoming Environment Bill will require companies to report spills from CSOs, but the panel told the committee there is not yet the technology avail- able to capture the information required by legislation. Water bosses tell MPs agriculture is undoing good work on river quality overall level of investment in the UK, potentially bringing gains to productivity and economic output. In the final report for its Net Zero Review, the Treasury drew attention to the potential ben- efits of the increased investment, noting that GDP multipliers for green investments in renewables can be between 2.2 to 2.5 times larger than fossil fuel energy investment. However, the report also cautioned that some technolo- gies such as CCUS will impose additional costs on an ongoing basis. The Treasury said the costs and benefits of the transition will ultimately flow through to households but will not be spread evenly, depending on fac- tors such as how much energy they use, the type of house they live in and whether or not they drive a car. Given this variation, includ- ing within income groups, the department said it would be more effective to focus on indi- vidual technology transitions, providing targeted support for low-income groups most acutely affected by each, rather than considering the transition in aggregate and providing "uni- versal and untargeted" support such as changes to taxes and welfare. It also highlighted concern over the impact on the public purse of shrinking revenues from fuel duty, saying the pro- ceeds for carbon pricing would be unable to fill the gap. The Treasury said fuel duty and vehicle taxes amounted to £37 billion in 2019/20 – the equivalent of 1.7% of GDP: "Therefore, as set out in the government's Ten Point Plan, motoring taxes will need to keep pace with these changes during the transition to ensure the UK can continue to fund first-class public services and infrastruc- ture." David Blackman, policy correspondent; Tom Grimwood, news editor • For more on the Heat and Buildings Strategy, see p16

• Cover