Utility Week

4 | 18TH - 24TH MARCH 2016 | UTILITY WEEK Not suitable for flushing Drainage specialist Lanes Group has published research suggesting the majority of British people flush unsuitable items down their toilets and plugholes. The study of 1,101 UK adults identified the most common unsuitable items and the worst cities for them. 87% Birmingham was found to be the worst offender 80% followed by Edinburgh 78% people from London admitted to flushing non- flushable items 75% Leeds was the fourth worst 56% Glasgow was found to be the most drain- friendly city STORY BY NUMBERS Shadow minister calls for capacity market redesign Seven days... T he capacity market may need a "basic redesign", because proposals to reform it are beginning to look like "flogging a dead horse", shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead has said. Last week the government laid out a number of potential changes to the mechanism a•er the first two auctions brought forward just 4.5GW of new capacity and one new combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant. The proposals include raising the overall amount of capacity bought, selling some of it earlier and holding an extra auction for the winter of 2017/18 so the contingency balancing reserve can be closed a year early. Speaking to Utility Week, Whitehead (pictured) said the government appeared to be "taking a large amount of money and throwing it up against a wall to see if any of it will stick to new gas-fired power stations". He said it was unclear if the reforms would succeed in pushing up the auction clearing price by enough to encourage investment in new CCGT plants. Even if it did, he added, the cost could be "stupendous" – "probably getting on for £2 billion". Whitehead argued for a "much more fundamental rearrangement" of the capacity market to "reduce the amount of free money that was going out to various people for no appar- ent purpose" and to "concen- trate more exactly" on what is required in terms of new-build gas power stations. He didn't think the mecha- nism was on course to succeed in doing either of those things: "At the moment we've got prob- ably the worst of all worlds. "You could almost get the conclusion that actually the department is flogging a dead horse," he added. TG £380k Amount Thames Water was fined for polluting a stream in Buckinghamshire National media Flint water crisis: governor rejects Democrat criticism Michigan governor Rick Snyder has stood firm aer Democratic presi- dential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders called for his res- ignation over the Flint water crisis. Snyder, a Republican, has rejected claims of inefficiency as thousands of people were le without safe tap water and at risk of lead poisoning. He has described the crisis as a "massive error of bureaucracy". Meanwhile, seven families have filed a lawsuit against authorities. BBC News, 7 March London EV commuter car on the roads An electric vehicle that costs less than £13,000 with weekly running costs of £10 is set to be on the roads in London this spring. Built by Indian industrial giant Mahindra & Mahindra, the e20 has been trialled in London as a city commuters' car. Mahindra's EV business chief executive, Arvind Mathew, said: "We want to take [electric cars] out of the elitist market and make it more of a run-of-the-mill thing." The Times, 14 March Australian renewable energy jobs fall by 27% More than a quarter of jobs in the re- newable energy industry have disap- peared since 2011, with a continued decline in the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The clean energy industry, con- sumer groups and conservationists blamed federal government actions such as reviewing the renewable energy target and maintaining the policy of axing the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. In the 2014/15 financial year, 5,100 full-time equivalent jobs had gone from the sector since 2011/12, a drop of 27 per cent. The Guardian, 15 March "This is just too big an issue to not face up to" Energy UK chief executive Lawrence Slade has called for the government to make clear what is happening with energy efficiency policy in the future

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