Utility Week

UTILITY Week 10th October 2014

Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government

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UTILITY WEEK | 10Th - 16Th OcTObEr 2014 | 3 Leader Ellen Bennett This week 4 | Seven days 6 | People & Opinion 8 | Interview basil Scarsella, chief executive, UKPN 12 Policy & Regulation 12 | News Lib Dems call for greater use of Suds 13 | Analysis Pre-qualifiers for capacity auction 14 | Lib Dem conference Stuck in the middle with Nick 15 | Market view CfDs: worth the wait? 18 Finance & Investment 18 | News Renewables funding increased to £300m 20 | Market view Carbon budget goes fourth 22 Operations & Assets 22 | High viz Ecotricity's Galsworthy 24 | Market view A megawatt saved… 25 | Market view Dire skills straits 26 Customers 26 | News EU rules could put up water bills 27 | Market view Technology raises the stakes 28 Markets & Trading 28 | News Supply concerns lift power market prices 29 | Market view Blackouts: risk and reality 30 Community 30 | Reader of the week Dominic Thasarathar, Autodesk 31 | Disconnector Little changes can make a big difference There's something so tempting about radical, grand schemes. Let's build nuclear! Let's design a capacity market! Let's develop a national water grid! They provide big solutions to big problems; build political and business reputations and careers; and provide headlines month aer month and year aer year as every twist and tortuous turn is documented. Yet oen, the real answers lie in the little changes – doing things slightly differently, with a little impact, building over time. It's not as glamorous, it won't make anybody's name, and it might take even longer than a decision on Hinkley Point C – but it works. This week, we report the Lib Dems have called for more wide- spread adoption of Suds, or sustainable drainage systems (p18). Reforms to bring these forward were contained in the 2010 Water White Paper, and have the backing of water companies, experts and politicians led by the Efra select committee. Yet the government is still dragging its feet over reforms that would push Suds through the planning system. Meanwhile, in the networks sector, we report this week that new data released to distribution network operators by the Customer-Led Network Revolution will help develop understanding of evolving customer use patterns; information that could enable networks to make more efficient use of their resources (p26). This project was one of many funded by the Low Carbon Network Fund – a govern- ment-backed scheme, now closed, to foster innovation in a sector that had been starved of R&D by years of the RPI-X price regime. We also report a warning from Basil Scarsella, chief executive of UK Power Networks, that Ofgem risks ending this nascent culture of innovation (p8). He argues that the regulator is demanding too high a rate of return on its investment in innovation, setting the bar too high for networks to achieve their own business benefits. On the energy supply side of the utilities business, Labour and the Lib Dems both seem to have realised the benefits of just getting something done. They have taken the fight to energy efficiency, which, despite Caroline Flint's attempts to give it "national infra- structure" billing, is never going to be sexy. But it is important, and could make as much, if not more, difference to the country's energy future as high-powered deals brokered in Whitehall and boardrooms. If the government and regulator could take the same approach to Suds, innovation in networks and many other small but sensible re- forms, some of those grands projets may start to look less necessary. Ellen Bennett, Editor ellen.bennett@fav-house.com GAS 18 | News Ineos buys CHP plant at Grangemouth WATEr 12 | News Lib Dems call for greater use of Suds 26 | News EU rules could put up drinking water bills ELEcTrIcITY 8 | Interview basil Scarsella, chief executive, UK power networks 13 | Analysis Pre- qualifiers for first capacity auction announced 15 | Market view CfDs: worth the wait? 18 | High viz Ecotricity's Galsworthy 24 | Market view Dynamic response: a megawatt saved… 28 | News Supply concerns lift power market prices 29 | News Blackouts: risk and reality ENERGy 14 | Analysis Lib Dem conference 20 | Market view Carbon budget goes fourth 21 | Investor view Jamie richards 25 | Market view Dire skills straits 27 | Market view Technology raises the stakes Knowledge worth keeping Visit the Downloads section of Utility Week's website http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/ downloads Smartest Energy: Energy Entrepreneurs Report http://bit.ly/1kzddrn IBM: Smarter Asset Management http://bit.ly/Xx7myx

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