Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
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Seven days... National media Unholy row over church windfarm The Archbishop of Canterbury is being urged to block plans for the first windfarm on Church of England land in Scotland, following claims the project puts profits before people. The church has already withdrawn plans to erect six turbines on its land in Devon after parishioners protested, but has given its blessing to renewable energy giant RES to apply to site up to six times as many turbines in the Scottish borders. The Sunday Times Nuclear waste site consultation 'rigged' The government stands accused of drafting the consultation process to favour Sellafield as the site of a multi-billion pound nuclear waste storage facility, despite an official inquiry demonstrating that its geology is highly fractured and unsuitable for the safe storage of radioactive waste. The Observer Energy firms botch supplier switches Tens of thousands of households suffer bungled switches when they change energy supplier, while others are moved to new providers without consent. Many of these errors can be traced to incorrect national databases of meter information. The Sunday Telegraph 67% Number of respondents who see RIIO as a gamechanger for their business, according to exclusive research by Utility Week in association with EC Harris, p12 4 | 24th - 30th January 2014 | UTILITY WEEK story by NUMBERS Unhappy customers Consumer satisfaction with the UK's energy companies has hit "a new low", according to Which? 41% Average customer satisfaction with energy suppliers, down from 49% last year 31% Npower's ranking – the lowest – down from 39% 82% Satisfaction ratings for smaller suppliers Good Energy and Ecotricity 2 The number of suppliers that did not see a drop in their satisfaction score Green Deal 'relaunch' may spell end of golden rule Home owners could be allowed to opt out of the golden rule as part of a "relaunch" of the Green Deal. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) is considering changes to the scheme, including an end to the golden rule – whereby measures installed must repay the investment within 25 years. Speaking at a UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) event on Tuesday, Jon Booth, director of household energy efficiency at Decc, said: "It is right to think about the reform of the Green Deal in this second year." He added that allowing an opt-out of the golden rule has "quite significant risks attached to it" but addressing the funding gap was "the most important thing". Booth said a series of planned changes to the Green Deal, including the stamp duty rebate, will help make it more attractive for potential customers and once these changes had been "Michael Fallon was already a part-time energy minister – now he is a part-time, parttime energy minister" Shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex on Fallon's appointment as minister for Portsmouth implemented there would be a "relaunch" of the Green Deal with a new marketing campaign. Climate change minister Greg Barker said the latest figures for the Green Deal, which showed 626 plans had gone live with a further 984 plans either new or pending, were a "good base", but he admitted the number of people signing up to Green Deal plans had been disappointing. Barker said: "The finance is starting to flow but it is certainly below the 10,000 plans I thought would be written in the first year. "I thought the 10,000 plans would be the total number of people taking up a Green Deal measure – I didn't think the split between self-pay and Green Deal finance would be so wide." Shadow climate change minister Jonathan Reynolds said the number of plans after the first year was "disappointing" and that reforms to the scheme are needed to boost consumer uptake. MB £5.6m Amount by which Ofwat underestimated its budget, as detailed in a report this week. See p18