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UTILITY WEEK | 15Th - 21sT JanUarY 2016 | 3 Leader Ellen Bennett This week 4 | Seven days 6 | People & Opinion 9 Policy & Regulation 9 | News Industry at odds over storage ownership 10 | Analysis Energy efficiency still languishes in the cold 13 | Market view Water companies face competition from energy suppliers 14 | Analysis Is this the end of the road for CCs in the UK? 17 Finance & Investment 17 | News Coal-fired generation may 'get a reprieve' 18 Operations & Assets 18 | High viz ORE Catapult and Atlantis Resources 20 | Market view Industry 4.0 can help water companies' totex drive 21 | Analysis With leakage levels rising, should targets be tightened? 23 Customers 23 | News 'Tough message' expected from the CMA 24 | Market view There are better ways to manage energy consumption 25 | Analysis DNOs lay the groundwork for mass take-up of EVs 27 | Market view Analytics can help you manage customer churn 29 | Market view Innovative billing and payment can be a differentiator for suppliers 30 Community 31 | Disconnector Sabre rattling as speculation mounts on CMA remedies Sabres have been rattling this week, as the energy market prepares for the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA's) publication of its provisional remedies later this month. When SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies told the Financial Times the company would "have to think about" legal action if the CMA pressed ahead with its original proposal of a safeguard tariff, the message was clear: we are not without recourse, and we will not take it lying down. His comments echoed those made by the big six in the wake of Labour's price freeze proposal, which were based on the premise that, under European competition law, they would have at least a fighting chance of protecting their right to set prices. Fighting talk notwithstanding, it's looking increasingly unlikely that the denouement of the CMA saga will be anything so dramatic. Analysts at Citigroup published a note to investors this week claim- ing the CMA was set to deliver "tough messages" to the market, but a closer read reveals a message that is more palatable to companies. Citigroup predicts that rather than press ahead with its original proposal for a safeguard tariff to prevent any customers on standard variable tariffs from paying over a set amount, the CMA will recom- mend a tariff for vulnerable customers. This is the acceptable face of the safeguard tariff, as the companies themselves have been saying privately since last year. While the political and media machine requires a certain amount of sound and fury, the fact is that the market has moved on since the CMA began its investigation. Switching is up, small suppliers are flourishing, and most of the big six are making dramatic changes to their business models, prompted by market forces rather than regulatory ones. The Conservatives have seen off the Labour threat and consolidated their power base, meaning there is less political pressure for radical market interventions. • Talking of interventions, Dieter Helm's paper calling for water companies to take a greater role in flood defence is significant. This debate, controversial in some quarters, was always going to happen this year. Given the devastating flooding seen in the past few weeks and the apparent chaos at the Environment Agency, it just got a lot more urgent. Ellen Bennett, Editor ellen.bennett@fav-house.com Gas 17 | Stock watch WaTEr 20 | Market view Industry 4.0 can help water companies' totex drive 21 | Analysis Should targets be tightened? ELECTrICITY 9 | News Industry at odds over storage ownership 14 | Analysis Is this the end of the road for CCs in the UK? 17 | News Coal-fired generation may 'get a reprieve' 18 | High viz ORE Catapult and Atlantis Resources 25 | Analysis DNOs lay the groundwork for mass take-up of EVs EnErGY 10 | Analysis Energy efficiency still languishes in the cold 11 | Opinion Energy efficiency initiatives must learn from past mistakes 13 | Market view Water companies face competition from energy 23 | News 'Tough message' expected from the CMA 24 | Market view Better ways to manage energy consumption Knowledge worth Keeping Visit the DownloaDs section of Utility week's website http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/ downloads Fujitsu: Digital Inside Out Transforming Utilities. http://bit.ly/1V2xiKb Cognizant: Transforming the Customer Experience for UK Utilities. http://bit.ly/1Pim1TK