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4 | 1ST - 7TH MAYAPRIL 2015 | UTILITY WEEK National media SESW starts AMP6 work Sutton and East Surrey Water started work on its five-year AMP6 investment programme this month. £2m amount per month SESW is investing over the five-year period £117m total being invested up to 2020 £6m will be spent replacing ageing water mains £2m will be spent on projects to main- tain and improve water treatment works £2.2m will be spent installing more water meters £1m will be spent on environmental improvements Prince Charles shuns fossil fuel investments A campaign to blacklist fossil fuel investments has gone global over the past 12 months; now it can also claim to be regal. The Prince of Wales is the most prominent name to emerge from a Financial Times' survey of British individuals and institutions that are shunning coal, oil and gas company holdings. Seven foundations, including three of the Sainsbury family's charitable trusts, say they have decided fossil fuel companies are "no longer sound investments". Financial Times, 26 April Greek-Russia energy alliance alarms US The US is scrambling to head off a Greek pipeline deal with Russia, fearing a disastrous change in the strategic balance of the eastern Mediterranean as Greece's radical- Le government dris into the Kremlin's orbit. Ernest Moniz, the US energy secretary, said his country was pushing for an alternative gas pipe- line from Azerbaijan that would help break the stranglehold that Russian state-controlled firm Gazprom has on European markets. The Daily Telegraph, 23 April Russia and Argentina agree framework Russia and Argentina have signed a series of framework agreements on economic and energy co-operation following talks in Moscow. Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Russian leader Vladimir Putin hailed their co-operation as a "comprehensive strategic partnership". The agreements include Russian investment in a hydro plant and a nuclear power plant in Argentina. BBC News, 24 April STORY BY NUMBERS E nergy suppliers could be hit in the pocket by rising gas prices this winter as delays in refilling UK storage facilities put the nation at risk of price shocks, analysts have warned. UK suppliers are under intense political pressure to keep a lid on rising retail energy prices but the gas market has entered the summer season with the second lowest storage inventories on record. Centrica confirmed on Mon- day that its Rough gas storage facility, which holds around 70 per cent of the UK's domes- tic winter gas storage, will be reduced by as much as 30 per cent for at least six months. At the same time gas produc- tion from the UK's usual sources in Norway and the Netherlands are restricted, meaning the UK will rely more heavily on con- tinental gas markets, which in turn are expected to double their dependence on Russian gas supplies compared with import levels last year. Analysts at Thomson Reuters' Point Carbon warn that if the political tensions between Rus- sian and European Union reig- nite by October the result could be a disruption of much-needed supply, and a steep premium to be paid by European gas customers. Point Carbon analyst Oliver Sanderson told Utility Week that Russian gas flows into Europe in the final quarter of last year were between 170-190 million cubic meters a day but that this year as much as 350-370 mcm/d would be needed. "If these higher Russian vol- umes do not materialise, there is little other supply to draw on at current prices," Sanderson warned. JA Full analysis, p29 Concerns mount over UK's winter gas price risk Seven days... "They must look beyond the next election" Professor of electrical power systems at Newcastle University Phil Taylor says the next government must invest in and enable energy storage now to avoid higher bills later 7% community energy group Big- 60Million has made its first 7 per cent interest payment to bond- holders in its Willersey solar farm