Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
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National media Bank of England investigating risk of 'carbon bubble' The Bank of England is to conduct an inquiry into the risk of fossil fuel companies causing a major eco- nomic crash if future climate change rules render their coal, oil and gas assets worthless. The concept of a "carbon bubble" has gained rapid recognition since 2013 and is being taken increasingly seriously by some major financial companies, including Citi Bank, HSBC and Moody's. The Guardian, 1 December 'A single energy market is not a buyers' cartel' The EU must not create a buyers' cartel in its bid to build a single energy market and curb reliance on Russian gas, the International Energy Agency said this week. Conflict between Russia, the EU's biggest energy supplier, and Ukraine has focused efforts on a reinforced EU energy market with better cross-border links to share power and gas and deliver fair pricing. The Business Times, 1 December Russia's South Stream pipeline falls victim to Ukraine crisis Russia's $40 billion South Stream gas pipeline project has fallen victim to plunging energy prices, stalling European demand and the political stand-off between the EU and Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine. Russia on Monday said it had scrapped the project to supply gas to Europe without crossing Ukraine, citing EU objections. South Stream was to have transported 63 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year, equivalent to more than 10 per cent of European demand. Reuters, 2 December O fgem held the line in its final determinations for power networks on Tuesday (2 December), with only minor adjustments relat- ing to pension liabilities. The eight-year settlements for five of the six distribution network operators (DNOs) remain broadly in line with the summer's dra deter- minations. Two companies – Electricity North West and SSE Power Distribution – have seen their settlements rise by 1.7 per cent, while SP Energy Networks has seen its sum fall by 0.6 per cent. The DNOs had been hop- ing that the regulator would be more generous in its final determinations, following dra determinations that saw £1.4 billion wiped off compa- nies' business plans. Ofgem said its overall assessment was relatively unchanged since the dra determinations. However, since then there has been an audit of pension liabilities, outside Ofgem's control, which must be factored into the network companies' busi- ness plans. The final determinations are now under consulta- tion for eight weeks, during which time the networks must decide whether to accept them, or trigger a Competi- tion and Markets Authority referral. In a statement, SSE Power Distribution, which publicly criticised the summer's dra determinations, said: "Over the coming weeks, we will carefully examine the detail of Ofgem's final determina- tion and assess whether it represents a fair balance for customers and investors." EB Ofgem sticks to its guns in DNO final determinations Seven days... Scottish renewables take the lead Government data shows renewables have overtaken nuclear as Scotland's biggest power source for the first half of this year. 32% Amount by which renewables gen- eration exceeded nuclear in H1 10.3TWh Power generated by renewables 7.8TWh Power generated by nuclear 5.6TWh Power generated by gas 1.4TWh Power generated by coal STory by NUMbErS 4 | 5tH - 11tH December 2014 | UtILItY WeeK "Changing the way we work will allow us to take ownership of projects and make the key decisions" Southern Water's chief engineer, Ian Kirkaldy, on the company's decision to bring its engineering team back in-house for AMP6. "Eon has become the latest utility to concede that business conditions are irreversibly changing" Citigroup Utilities Team on news the German energy giant will split its business. More on p19.