Utility Week

12 | JUNE 2022 | UTILITY WEEK Energy Analysis Cybersecurity tops the risk list for utilities The inaugural UK Utilities Risk Report, from Utility Week and Marsh, highlights the key issues keeping sector leaders awake at night. Here we present an introduction to the report along with an excerpt about the top rated risk – cyber-attack. U tility Week's first risk report in con- junction with leading global risk and insurance broker Marsh comes at a time of immense challenge for utilities. Risks on registers have turned into reality as util- ity companies have battled the elements and began bracing themselves for a deluge of companies and consumers unable to pay their bills. At the start of the year, utility companies had to struggle to keep services up and run- ning during three named storms in a week. Lack of wind, problems with interconnec- tors and growth in demand coming out of the pandemic, have seen energy prices climb over the past six months. The impact has been to send dozens of energy retailers to the wall and customers' bills rocketing – and that was before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The war there has led to greater threat levels of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, as well as tightening global gas and oil supplies and surging fuel prices at the pumps. Meanwhile, consumer groups, politicians and environmental agencies have turned the spotlight on water and Combined Sewer Overflows, with Ofwat launching enforce- ment cases into five water companies a…er finding cause for "serious concern" about their management of wastewater. The challenges of today will no doubt have had a bearing on the respondents to our survey, the results of which formed the basis of the report. The online survey sought to determine what utility companies see as the major risks they face over the next five to ten years. They were asked to mark 24 risk factors across five potential areas of risk: • Policy and regulatory risks. • Societal risks. • Environmental risks. • Investment and skills risks. • Digital and security risks. Participants were asked to rate the like- lihood of the risk manifesting and then if it did happen, what the impact would be on their business. We also asked survey par- ticipants how confident they were that risks could be mitigated. Participants were asked to score 24 risk factors out of a maximum of 5 for both likelihood and impact on their busi- ness, with 5 being extremely likely and hav- ing the biggest impact on their business. The average scores for each risk factor for both

• Cover