Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
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utILIty WeeK | 27th February - 5th March 2015 | 5 eNergy Last week, the Prince of Wales visited thames Water's abbey Mills Pumping Station to mark the completion of tunnelling work on the £635 million Lee tunnel, one of the two tunnels in the thames tideway tunnel project, otherwise known as London's supersewer. the prince was also marking the 150th anniversary of London's sewer network. Water resilience taskforce revealed £76bn a new report on the potential of wave and tidal power from renewable uK says uK compa- nies are well-placed to capture £76 billion of a global market by 2050, adding up to £4 billion to uK gDP The CMA spoke out this week to offer the first clues as to where its energy sector investiga- tion will focus. Although no conclusions have been reached, the investigators compared the average standard variable tariff against forward-looking costs in its initial work (pic- tured) and said the chart was consistent with a potential weakening of competition over time, and particularly from 2009, as the gap between average tariffs and underlying costs appears to widen. "We will seek to assess to what extent the 'rockets and feathers hypothesis' [where prices rise quickly but fall slowly] applies in practice," the CMA said. For more, see p9, and analysis, p24. Energy competition weakening, says CMA "We are stuck with $100 a barrel costs and $50 a barrel revenues" New Centrica chief executive Iain Conn on the pressures facing Centrica Energy. For more on Centrica's 2014 full year results, see p15 1 year cost benchmark (energy, network and policy costs) Adjusted Ofgem SMI (18-month; energy, network and policy costs) Simple average dual fuel bill, standard variable tariff (direct debit) Jan 04 Jan 06 Jan 08 Jan 10 Jan 12 Jan 14 £ per customer per year 1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 The 12-strong expert panel that will make up the sector's new resilience working group has been revealed. It includes representatives from the water sector, as well as an environmental campaigner and an academic. The task-and-finish group will work for a year producing a series of short reports before preparing a final report that will feed into the regulator's thinking for the PR19 policy framework. The members are: • Kat Austen, head of design and research, Information Innovation Lab; • Richard Aylard, external affairs and sustainability director, Thames Water; • Sarah Bentley, chief customer officer, Severn Trent Water; • Tim Bowen, corporate development director, Costain; • Jerry Bryan, chairman, Albion Water; • Diane McCrea, vice-chair, CCW; • Rose O'Neill, freshwater expert, WWF; • Nicci Russell, director of parliamentary and public affairs, Ofwat; • Heather Smith, academic fellow, Cranfield University; • John Spence, head of environment and quality, Southern Water; • Jean Spencer, director of regulation, Anglian Water; and • Jacob Tompkins (chair), managing director, Waterwise.