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Utility Week 19th September

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UtILItY WeeK | 19th - 25th September 2014 | 5 Scottish Water has developed a new fall protection system to safeguard staff and contractors working over wet well chambers (above). The company has devised a four-part fall protection grid for access covers to wet wells in collaboration with secure access specialist, Technocover. "All of the big six energy companies languish in the bottom fifth of the table" A new Which? survey has found that energy suppliers are among the worst offenders when it comes to poor customer service "The Oink team will call a piglet a piglet – Oink folk are a truly straight talking bunch" Green Energy's new "white label" brand hopes to widen the company's appeal to a new demographic. See news story, p25 CuStomer ComplaintS to water CompanieS on DownwarD trenD How to boost renewables in europe In eY's latest renewable energy Country Attractiveness report, the consultancy urged europe's renewable industry to "liber- ate itself from the shackles of legacy support mechanisms" and achieve grid parity. eY sets outs its suggestions for national and eU policymakers as: Don't Over-regulate or continuously tinker with existing policies Let the process of target-setting overshadow what those targets are trying to achieve Allow the monetization of carbon and the associated mechanisms to become a distraction from the end goal Let the debate on an eU energy market integration become an all-or-nothing proposition — leverage political and geographical synergies to the extent required Focus on energy generation and revenue support mechanisms Do p educate and enable with the goal of empowering consumers, encouraging innovation and streamlining bureaucratic processes p Create more flexible transmission systems, encompassing microgrids, distributed generation and priority of dispatch p Create conditions for effective and targeted capacity market, storage and demand management solutions p Level the playing field with other energy sources through transparency on legacy as well as current and future costs p Create investor-friendly capital markets that support wide- ranging financing models p Ensure that support mechanisms facilitate the flight path to grid parity, avoiding stop-start-stall economics Water and sewerage companies Water-only companies ➡ ➡ -26.3 -38.1 -7.2 16.9 -2.1 -28.9 -8.4 -20.0 -16.7 -16.9 -28.7 -15.6 3.2 -7.5 -15.7 -32.0 -17.3 5.3 -21.6 5.4 -28.0 Southern (=) South West(+2) Anglian (-1) Severn trent (+3) United Utilities (=) thames (-3) Yorkshire (-1) Northumbrian (=) Welsh Water (=) Wessex (=) South east (=) Dee Valley (=) essex & Suffolk (=) South Staffs (=) bristol (+2) hartlepool (-1) Sembcorp bournemouth (+2) Affinity (+3) Sutton & east Surrey (+1) Cambridge (-2) portsmouth (=) 0 10 20 ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ ➡ 30 Number of complaints per 10,000 connections 40 50 60 70 80 90 CCWater published its annual Written Customer Complaints report on 15 September, revealing that most water companies had responded positively to Ofwat's challenge to drive down complaints. More on this story, p25. more complaints than in 2012/13, in % Fewer complaints than in 2012/13, in % Average = 39.8 November 2014 Frontier Economics director matthew Bell is due to join the Committee on Climate Change as its new chief executive, following the departure of David Kennedy in June this year

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