Utility Week

UTILITY Week 21st March 2014

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UTILITY WEEK | 21sT - 27Th March 2014 | 3 Leader Ellen Bennett This week 4 | Seven days 6 | Opinion Juliet Davenport, cEO, Good Energy 8 | Interview sacha Deshmukh, cEO, central Delivery Body 13 Policy & Regulation 13 | News 'Enhanced' firms say yes to Ofwat guidance 14 | Special report sustainability Live preview 16 | Market view cartel rules get tougher 18 Finance & Investment 18 | News 'Too early to say' if hinkley is good value 19 | Analysis Electricity offtaker of last resort 20 Operations & Assets 20 | High viz Viridor energy from waste 23 | Market view Is the Thames Barrier enough? 24 | Market view Lone worker safety 26 Customers 26 | News Most people still confused by energy bills 27 | Market view The cost of sustainability 28 Markets & Trading 28 | News Nord Pool spot set to revamp N2EX market 30 Community 30 | Subscriber focus adam Mallaby, Npower 31 | Disconnector Smart meters spell the end for dinosaurs At last, some straight talking. The chief executive of the newly estab- lished Central Delivery Body (CDB) for the rollout of smart meters has effectively laid down the gauntlet to the "dinosaurs" of the established energy supply market (p8). Sacha Deshmukh predicts that Amazon and other customer-focused service providers will move their tanks on to the big six's lawn; that the new informed and empowered generation of energy consumers created by smart meters will look to providers they trust to manage their energy consumption in the home. Our Chief Executive Comment from Juliet Davenport this week shows Good Energy is already thinking along these lines. The smart meter rollout officially begins in the autumn of 2015. This will be several months aer an election in which energy prices and policy will have been top of the agenda, and pretty much exactly when a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investiga- tion into the energy supply market would be due to report back, if it were launched before the end of this month (odds-on it will be). If Labour wins the election and the big six are broken up (or if Labour loses, but the CMA orders a break-up anyway), the suppliers will have a choice to make. Sell the retail arm and focus on genera- tion, or play in an increasingly crowded and competitive space for customers? The attraction of the generation play will itself depend on the success of EMR and the capacity auction at the end of this year. If that goes well for the big overseas players that have profit- able interests elsewhere in UK energy, such as Iberdrola with its networks and EDF with Hinkley, then their retail arms will begin to look superfluous. It's a different play for British Gas, which despite the forays of parent Centrica into retail in North America and its highly profitable upstream business, is still firmly rooted in the UK market. Its current advertising campaign and early smart meter rollout speaks of ambi- tions to play in the customer service space, and no doubt it would continue to benefit from the might of its once-monopoly brand. So for all Ed Miliband's sound and fury, in some ways it really doesn't matter who wins the 2015 election. For the big six, the world as they know it is ending. Ellen Bennett, Editor ellen.bennett@fav-house.com Gas 13 | Political Agenda Mathew Beech WaTEr 7 | Expert view Karma Ockenden 13 | News 'Enhanced' firms say yes to Ofwat guidance 21 | Pipe up Ian codling 23 | Market view Is the Thames Barrier enough? ELEcTrIcITY 18 | News 'Too early to say' if hinkley is good value 19 | Market view Offtaker of last resort 20 | High viz Viridor energy from waste 28 | News Nord Pool spot set to revamp N2EX market 28 | Market watch Forward power prices ENErGY 6 | Chief executive view Juliet Davenport, Good Energy 8 | Interview sacha Deshmukh, cEO, central Delivery Body 16 | Market view cartel rules about to get a lot tougher 18 | Stock watch rWE's share price rise 26 | News Most people still confused by energy bills 27 | Market view The cost of sustainability Knowledge worth keeping Visit the Downloads section of Utility Week's website for special reports and exclusive research commissioned for the utilities industry. http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/downloads

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