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4 | 11TH - 17TH SEPTEMBER 2015 | UTILITY WEEK National media England's largest windfarm gets go-ahead England's largest onshore wind- farm was given the go-ahead last week after Ros- sendale Borough Council gave United Utilities and Peel Energy permission to extend the Scout Moor windfarm. 14 new turbines approved. Two more are pending 36.8MW additional capacity 101.8MW new total capacity 29 turbines in the existing windfarm 65MW current capacity For news on 360MW of refused wind plans, see page 9 Palin would scrap US energy department Sarah Palin has said she would like to serve as energy secretary in a Donald Trump administration – in order to abolish the department. The former governor of Alaska and conservative activist told CNN that "energy is my baby". "Oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind's use," she said. Trump said in July he would be open to the possibility of Palin serving in his government. BBC News, 6 September Gaelectric raises €28m to fund wind projects Renewable energy group Gaelectric has raised €28 million in debt finance to fund the ongoing rollout of wind energy projects in Ireland. The financing has been advanced by Proventus Capital Part- ners II AB. It is the fourth time, since December 2012, that Proventus has been involved in Gaelectric funding. Henrik Bjerklin, investment director with Proventus Capital Part- ners, noted its funding of Gaelectric had supported the transition of its wind projects to operational status. "Its onshore portfolio is grounded in projects with consents and grid connections in place, locations with strong wind resources and good generation technology," he said. Irish Times, 6 September Iluméxico to bring solar power to 300,000 Iluméxico, the Mexican social enterprise focused on solar power, has joined the Business Call to Action with a commitment to bring its solar home systems to 50,000 off-grid rural homes – approximately 300,000 people – by 2020. This commitment includes the creation of 180 jobs, of which 90 will be designated for women and 70 will be in rural communities. The Guardian, 4 September STORY BY NUMBERS B ritish Gas parent company Centrica has slammed the Competition and Mar- kets Authority (CMA), saying its proposals to fix the energy market are based on "unsound" analysis. In a damning response to the CMA's proposed remedies, the UK's largest energy supplier said the CMA's proposed safe- guard regulated tariff for sticky customers is "disproportionate" to the actual level of disengage- ment. Centrica claimed the remedy is based on a "selec- tive" customer survey and the assumption that all customers on standard variable tariffs or who have never switched sup- plier are disengaged. Centrica said: "We have a number of other concerns over the approach taken to the competitive assessment in the provisional findings. "We believe that each of them is based on a fundamental misreading of the market, and results in the CMA coming to an unduly pessimistic reading of the current competitiveness of the market and an over-interven- tionist approach to remedies." In addition, Centrica said the CMA's analysis of profitability is "not sufficiently robust" to sup- port a conclusion that excessive profits are being earned in retail markets. The supplier said: "We have serious concerns about the validity of some of the assump- tions that drive all three of the CMA's profitability analyses [return on capital employed, price benchmarking and Ebit benchmarking]. These concerns are so serious, we do not believe the analysis would stand up to rigorous peer review." Centrica's view is shared by other members of the big six, notably RWE Npower, which also has concerns about the CMA's analysis and called for further work before the final report, due in December. LD Centrica slams CMA remedies as 'unsound' Seven days... "… I want a parliamentary inquiry…" The people of Lancashire have launched a petition calling for a probe into United Utilities' handling of its recent parasite problems. The petition, as of 8 September, had nearly 15,000 signatories.