Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/603117
12 | 20TH - 26TH NOVEMBER 2015 | UTILITY WEEK Policy & Regulation This week Osborne: Grid faces terror attack threat Chancellor pledges that government will double spend on cyber-security to £1.9 billion by 2020 National Grid is under threat of a significant cyber-attack by extremist group Isis, as part of its plot to target UK infrastructure. The stark warning was made by Chancellor George Osborne on Tuesday, alongside a pledge to double government spend on cyber-security to £1.9 billion by 2020. Osborne used a speech at the Government Com- munications Headquarters (GCHQ) to warn of growing concerns that terror attacks against the UK by Isis could target National Grid, power plants and hospitals. The terror group is "already using the internet for hideous propaganda purposes; for radicalisation, for operational planning too", Osborne said. "They have not been able to use it to kill people yet by attacking our infrastructure through cyber-attack. They do not yet have that capability. But we know they want it, and are doing their best to build it," he added. The warning came aer multiple terror attacks in Paris on 13 November. The almost £2 billion cyber-security push is the second government move in recent weeks to protect the UK's energy infrastructure against cyber-terror. Last month it emerged that Chinese-built nuclear power plants in the UK will be protected from the threat of a cyber-attack by a listening station operated by GCHQ. National Grid said it has "robust monitoring systems" in place and keeps the IT systems used to operate the gas and electricity networks isolated from its everyday business systems. JA PAN-UTILITY Government to merge authorities The government is bringing its expertise in delivering major infrastructure projects under one roof for the first time by merging Infrastructure UK (IUK) and the Major Projects Authority (MPA). The new organisation, called the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), will come into effect from 1 January 2016 and will bring together governmental skills in the financing, delivery and assurance of projects rang- ing from large-scale infrastruc- ture such as Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel to major transformation programmes. It will report jointly to Chan- cellor George Osborne and the minister for the Cabinet Office, Matt Hancock. Tony Meggs, the current chief executive of the MPA, will be IPA chief executive. ELECTRICITY Mid-review possible for transmission Ofgem has singled out electric- ity transmission for a possible mid-period review (MPR), having identified issues with the price control a review could address. The regulator has opened a consultation with industry to establish if there is a need to initiate an MPR for both the electricity transmission and gas distribution price controls. The issues in RIIO-T1 which have raised the proposed review include the network output measures, the customer and stakeholder incentive mecha- nism and the strategic wider works submissions. However, Ofgem has not identified any material issues for gas distribu- tion that would require an MPR. If Ofgem does decide to implement an MPR, policy proposals would be set out in summer 2016 for a decision in late autumn 2016. The consulta- tion closes on 12 January 2016. WATER CMA streamlines approach to mergers The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has removed the need for all water mergers to be automatically referred for an in- depth phase two investigation. Following a consultation on the dra guidance, the CMA has published final guidance on its new approach for assessing water mergers. This will see them brought in line with the other M&A cases the CMA deals with, where a phase one inves- tigation is conducted first and can lead to straightforward deals being approved promptly. The guidance has been produced because of changes to the special water merger regime in the Water Act 2014, which are expected to come into force later this year. Osborne: 'they want it and are doing their best' Political Agenda Jillian Ambrose "The REF is not your average renewables group" The UK's active renewable energy lobby is no stranger to attacking the government's energy policy, offering increas- ingly blistering retorts to each political move. But in a refreshing change of pace this week, renewables asso- ciations turned on each other while the government made the final tweaks to its energy policy reset and upcoming spending review report. The Renewable Energy Foundation is not your average renewables group and responded by saying: "Figures for the first six months of 2014 show renewables have overtaken coal, gas and nuclear to be Scot- land's biggest source of power. There is little value in cherry- picking statistics on wind output on certain days of the year." It is a good point. And one we'll keep in mind the next time a certain day of the year pro- duces enough record wind stats to power a million triumphant press releases. renewables group. Although the REF claims to "encourage informed debate", in practice this manifests as taking shots at an industry you might expect it to represent. This week the REF hit out at the wind industry by reveal- ing data showing that Scottish windfarms contributed a mere 1.3 per cent of the UK's electric- ity on 4 November. The dismal display raises serious concerns about Alex Salmond's claim that the country could be the Saudi Arabia of renewables, we're told. It should be said, this story ran in the Scottish Daily Mail. Scottish Renewables is a more predictably pro- renewable