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UTILITY WEEK | 7TH - 13TH AUGUST 2015 | 31 Community Editor, Utility Week, and content director, Utilities: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen. bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@ fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@ fav-house.com; Assistant editor (insights): Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house. com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu.dutt@fav-house.com; Reporters: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com and Lucinda Dann, t: 01342 332083; e: lucinda.dann@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house.com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year, overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045 or email membership sales manager Paul Tweedale: paultweedale@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year. Overseas £689 per year. Email: paultweedale@fav-house.com Simon Bullock @simonbullock GOOD NEWS! The Government have not killed any environmental policies for nearly 24 hours now. Alex Marshall @alexmarshall81 Coming soon, "to protect taxpayers", the government will just forget it has nuclear waste stockpiles and hope for the best. @corbynjokes @corbynjokes "What do you call a fish with no eyes?" "A predictable consequence of the callous underfunding of the environment agency" PeterMannionMP @PeterMannionMP So it turns out Mark Whatsisname MP HAS got a frontbench job, but Tim Farron had planned to hold it back for a big reveal. #exciting #forgot Green LibDems @GreenLibDems Coal can cure poverty – in the same way that guillotines cure headaches. World Bank agrees we need to phase it out. Scottish Greens @scotgp Fracking/coal gas "are not going to create the kind of lasting, sustainable jobs that a renewable based approach is". Jeremy Gordon @jrmygrdn Many lols from RE boosters over apparently worthless coal plant, but the loss hits econo- my and utility shareholders – pensioners. David Powell @powellds Dislike saying 'Told you so'. But in 2011 I warned Green Deal was the sort of policy only Microsoft Excel could love. Jessica Lennard @JessicaLennard Ever see the mug that says "coffee, helping you do stupid things faster"? #faster switch- ing won't help erroneous data & disengaged customers Declan McHugh @decmchugh75 Jeremy Corbyn just texted me. Says he wants Diane Abbott to be Lab candidate for London mayor. Funny, my mate Lloyd who's a Tory wants same. Top Tweets Disconnector I'm in PR, hear me roar For most of us, life is full of small regrets: things we should have done, but didn't; or things we did do, but shouldn't have. For Walter Palmer, a dentist and part-time big game hunter from Minnesota, life holds just one regret, but it's a doozy: shooting Cecil the lion. Walter got more than his allotted 15 minutes of fame as news flew around the globe that he had shot Zimbabwe's favourite lion, Cecil, with a crossbow. And then tracked the injured beast for 40 hours before finishing him off with a rifle and chopping off his head to put on his wall. Commentators and column- ists in the press and on social media were not kind to Walter, who had forked out $50,000 for the privilege of polishing off Cecil. People got quite emotional and mawkish about the whole affair – it was Prin- cess Di all over again. There is even a cuddly toy (pictured). That didn't stop Renewable UK from trying to shoehorn Cecil's demise into its own campaign against government cuts to renewables subsidies. "New stats show why Tories shouldn't shoot the lion of the renewable energy sector," screamed the headline of a press release from the lobby group issued in the days following the tragedy. It can be unwise to try to use the public's grief and anger for your own ends, thinks Disconnector – it can so easily backfire. Apart from anything else, we all love lions because they look good but they're more decorative than practi- cal. That's not a comfortable metaphor for wind power. A drop of the good stuff It's a sad sign of the times that rich white westerners want to travel to Africa expressly to kill things, but the outrage was overblown and hypocritical given our treatment of animals generally. We are too cosseted and pampered, thinks Discon- nector. Is there no limit to our taste for comfort and luxury? Well, yes there is, as it happens. Twenty-six quid for a bottle of water. We know this because the five-star Merchant Hotel in Belfast has just intro- duced a menu of luxury waters ranging in price from £4.95 to £26.45 a bottle – and has been an object of much derision as a result. The hotel also appointed two water sommeliers to help guests choose between water sourced from countries such as Fiji, Iceland, Italy and the Arctic, but that still failed to legitimise charging £26.45 for a bottle of water, at least accord- ing to large sections of Twitter. As it happens, Disconnector has some sympathy with the hapless management of the Merchant. Who knows what the super-rich are prepared to pay for, and how much? If a pair of jeans can cost more than the average Joe would pay for a suit, or a handbag cost more than a house, why not stick a label for £26 on a bottle of water and see what happens? The wheel of fortune Domestic renewables can be problematic for the rich. Small turbines don't produce enough electricity to power a tooth- brush, and plastering the roof of your footballer's mansion with solar panels can spoil the kitsch vulgarity of the place. One well-to-do home- owner in Kent has got round the problem by adapting the waterwheel attached to his 17th century mill house to gener- ate electricity. The wheel can generate about £8,000-worth of electricity a year, enough to provide ample power for the house and export the excess back to National Grid. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it? A twee 17th century mill house once owned by the dean of Canter- bury that is self-sufficient with renewable power without a turbine or a panel in sight. All you need to do is stick a lion's head on the wall and you've got a house fit for a dentist. Disconnector