Utility Week

The Month in Review UTILITY WEEK | JULY 2022 | 7 New CEO for Southern Lawrence Gosden has been revealed as Southern Water's new chief executive following the news that incumbent Ian McAulay is to retire. Gosden, who takes up the role at the beginning of this month (July), began his career at Southern as a graduate and returned to the company in 2020 as chief operating o€ cer. Prior to returning, he spent 12 years at Thames Water where he held a number of senior executive roles. Speaking of his new position, Gosden said: "Southern Water has made great strides in improving transparency and putting in place the foundations of change. "We know we must continue to improve, and quickly. Working with the committed teams across Southern Water, we are ready to deliver the next phase of the trans- formation our customers and the environment deserves." SSE warns against radical wholesale reform The government should not go back to the drawing board with its mooted electricity market review, SSE has argued, while warning that introducing locational wholesale pricing would "signi‹ cantly increase uncertainty" for investors in large-scale energy projects. In an updated response to the House of Lords Economic A' airs Committee's ongoing inquiry into energy supply and investment, the company raised concerns about the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA), which was announced in the Energy Security Strategy. Pointing to the level of investment it has already committed to decarbonisation of UK electricity supply by 2030, SSE said the REMA should be an "evolution" of existing market frameworks rather than an exercise that goes "back to the drawing board". It also urged the government to ignore calls to introduce locational pricing into the wholesale electricity market. In a recent report, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) described the wholesale electricity market as "no longer ‹ t for purpose" and called for the introduction of nodal pricing, whereby the transmission network would be split into a number of nodes, each with their own wholesale price reflecting the cost of supplying electricity at that location. An earlier report from Octopus Energy and the Energy Systems Catapult found that locational pricing could reduce energy system costs by £30 billion by 2030 based on modelling of the less granular option of zonal pricing. However, SSE's response said that breaking the market down in this way would "signi‹ cantly increase uncertainty" for investors in large-scale renewable energy infrastructure. The Month in Review 91,000 switches between electricity suppliers in May – an all-time low. 1 billion Cubic meters of gas will be delivered to the UK for each of the next three winters under a deal between Centrica and Equinor. Price cap extended to heat networks The government has announced that protection against sky- rocketing energy bills will be extended to domestic customers of heat networks in areas desig- nated for the rollout of commu- nal systems. Customers of heat networks, who number around half a mil- lion, do not currently enjoy protection under the retail price cap. Ofgem classi• es supply to heat networks as a commercial, not domestic, arrangement, meaning their customers do not bene• t from the price cap. The Heat Trust recently wrote to business and energy secre- tary Kwasi Kwarteng warning that heat network customers face "huge and unrestricted" increases in their heating and power bills because they have been exposed to the full brunt of recent hikes in energy costs. New cost of living category for Utility Week Awards Entries are now being accepted for the UK's largest and most prestigious event for recognis- ing excellence across the utili- ties sector. The Utility Week Awards 2022 will be held on 6 Decem- ber at London's Grosvenor House where industry leaders and their teams will gather to celebrate successes of the past 12 months. Entries are now open across 13 categories, with a deadline for submission of 8 September. In recognition of utilities dedication to help customers struggling with their bills, this year's awards includes a new cost of living category. This rec- ognises the contribution of util- ities that have gone above and beyond their statutory duties to prevent or mitigate hardship for customers in current the cost of living crisis. Other highly contested cat- egories from previous years return, including collaborative excellence, employer of the year and the disruptor award, as well as the coveted utility of the year. To • nd out more about the categories and to submit your entries, go to www. utilityweekawards.co.uk Denise Chevin, author of several ' agship Utility Week reports and the brand's former intelligence editor, has been awarded an MBE. The honour, announced in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, is in recognition of Chevin's contribution to the built environment. She has been writer and edi- tor in the built environment sector, including utilities, for 30 years and has edited a number of titles, including Building Mag- azine from 2004-10. From 2018 to 2021 she was intelligence editor at Utility Week and since then been a contributing editor, tak- ing responsibility for major pro- jects including the recent Energy Reset report, a deep dive into the PR24 process and the inaugural UK Utilities Risk Report. She said: "I'm absolutely honoured, delighted, and hum- bled to receive an MBE for Ser- vices to the Built Environment… It's been very exciting to explore the energy and water sectors whose direction of travel is so aligned with tackling climate change and I look forward to continue working with utilities and regulators reporting on such important developments." Queen's Birthday Honours : Utility Week writer awarded an MBE

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