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UTILITY WEEK | 21sT - 27Th NovEmbEr 2014 | 3 Leader Ellen Bennett This week 4 | Seven days 6 | People & Opinion 8 | Interview Guus Weiss, head of retail, GDF suez Energy UK 13 Policy & Regulation 13 | News scottish Power must improve to avoid ban 14 | Analysis Completing the water jigsaw 17 | Market view Dig deep to deal with nuclear waste 19 Finance & Investment 19 | News Warm winter slashes ssE operating profit 20 | Market view Investment in UK energy 21 | Investor view Ian Temperton 22 Operations & Assets 22 | High viz Wessex Water 23 | Pipe up steve reynolds 25 Customers 25 | News Consumers find PR14 proposals acceptable 26 | Market view Put customers in the boardroom 27 Markets & Trading 27 | Market view First phase of gas storage project opens 29 | Market view What's a CfD worth to you? 30 Community 30 | Reader of the week Paul Addison, siemens 31 | Disconnector Water competition will arrive on time "Events, dear boy, events." Harold Macmillan's famous words neatly sum up the challenges to the nascent water market over the past year. To recap just a few 'events': original Open Water chief executive Keith Fowler made an unplanned exit in February; despite months of advertising, a permanent new boss was never found; the govern- ment bowed to pressure and made an 11th hour decision to allow companies to exit the retail market; and the Treasury slapped Ofwat in the face with an unexpected decision to classify Open Water Markets Ltd as a public body, thus scuppering the regulator's plans to speed the programme through at arm's length. To the cynical observer, this might smack of mismanagement and a lack of direction. But the water sector, notably united, insists this is not so. While Open Water has been lacking a permanent chief executive for most of the year, it has had clear and competent leadership from both interim chief executive John Parsonage and Scottish regulator and board member Alan Sutherland. By taking the decision – not popular in all quarters – to largely replicate the Scottish model of market operations and governance, Open Water has eased the process. The Treasury's decision was admittedly a blow, but it could prove to have unexpectedly positive results, with Open Water set up ready for use at a later date and the programme now reporting directly in to Sonia Brown, whose time will be freed up once PR14 is concluded. Meanwhile, company chief executives are beginning to look up, dazed, from their PR14 plans and see the challenges of competition ahead. The culture shi required by business separation is huge: fol- lowing a series of high-level workshops over the summer, the com- panies are, to varying degrees, beginning to get to grips with this. The water sector isn't keen on drama – companies still shud- der at the memory of Section 13. Without doubt, the Open Water programme has been prey to events, and has been muddled in some places and delayed in others. But thanks to the hard work of a few and the sector's usual can-do attitude, the market will open on time in 2017 and a quiet revolution will have been achieved. Ellen Bennett, Editor ellen.bennett@fav-house.com GAs 19 | Stock watch Eon and ssE 27 | News First phase of gas storage project opens WATEr 14 | Analysis Completing the water jigsaw 22 | High viz Wessex Water 25 | News Consumers find Pr14 proposals acceptable ELECTrICITY 17 | Market view Dig deep to deal with nuclear waste 26 | Market view Put customers at the heart of the boardroom 29 | Market view What's a CfD worth to you? ENErGY 6 | Chief executive view Juliet Davenport, Good Energy 8 | Interview Guus Weiss, head of retail, GDF suez Energy UK 13 | News scottish Power must improve to avoid ban 19 | News Warm winter slashes ssE operating profit 20 | Market view UK energy infrastructure investment 21 | Investor view Ian Temperton 23 | Pipe up steve reynolds Knowledge worth keeping Visit the Downloads section of Utility Week's website http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/ downloads O Power: The transformation from commodity suppliers http://bit.ly/1FQobpA IBM: Smarter Asset Management http://bit.ly/Xx7myx