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UTILITY WEEK | 22ND - 28TH APRIL 2016 | 3 Leader Ellen Bennett This week 4 | Seven days 6 | Interview Simon Roberts, chief executive, Centre for Sustainable Energy 9 Policy & Regulation 9 | News Grid: creating an ISO will affect investment 10 | Market view Extreme weather and the threat of legal challenges 11 | Analysis Ofwat's new top team 12 | Analysis What the government should do to boost community energy 15 Finance & Investment 15 | News Macquarie to sell Thames Water stake 16 Operations & Assets 16 | High viz WPL biofuel plant 18 | Outside In Space and aerospace, and what those sectors can teach utilities 21 Customers 21 | News Castle Water eyes expansion in England 22 | Analysis What is a fair price for energy? 24 | Market view Benefits of smart meters must be communicated to consumers 26 | Market view The EIC at Utility Week Live 29 Community 29 | Event A preview of Utility Week's Stars Awards 2016 31 | Disconnector Upstream water competition is already on its way As National Grid warns that creating an independent system opera- tor would damage investor confidence in the UK energy market (see news, p9), another proposal for a system operator is gaining far less attention. Deep within Ofwat's forest of Water 2020 literature is the idea that a system operator, or group of regional or catchment-based system operators, may be necessary to oversee water networks as the value chain disaggregates and systems become more complex. There's been a lot of noise about retail competition in the water market – both about that which we know is happening, when the market opens to non-household competition a little less than a year from now, and that which we know is increasingly likely to happen, when it opens to household competition perhaps as little as four years hence. Much less has been said about impending competition in the upstream part of the business. But make no mistake, it's coming. The legislative framework for upstream competition is already in place, under the Water Act 2014, and Ofwat has made plain its intention to introduce market mecha- nisms for sludge treatment and disposal and water trading from the next price review. Given the much bigger part of the water value chain that sits within the wholesale side of the business, the potential implica- tions of these reforms are huge – arguably more profound than retail reform. Proposals for the transformation of the way water is abstracted, treated, distributed and sold deserve every bit as much attention and debate as those for the reform of the energy sector. Until now, it has suited the water sector to focus on retail competi- tion, at least publicly, but with preparations for PR19 set to begin in earnest, the time has come for a bigger conversation. • With industry heavyweights including former energy secretary Ed Davey and one-time RWE boss Volker Becker lined up behind community energy, it seems the current administration is the only one not convinced. The model, vague and poorly defined as it is, has been slowed down by a lacklustre government strategy with few spending commitments, in 2014, and a slew of subsidy cuts and policy shis since then (see analysis, p12). Whitehall has a chance to put that right with the coming review of, and update to, the com- munity energy strategy: real spending commitments would give the model real momentum. Ellen Bennett, Editor ellen.bennett@fav-house.com GAS 18 | Outside In Space and aerospace, and what those sectors can teach utilities 26 | Market view The EIC at Utility Week Live WATER 10 | Market view Extreme weather and the threat of legal challenges 11 | Analysis Ofwat's new top team 15 | News Macquarie to sell Thames Water stake 21 | News Castle Water eyes expansion in England ELECTRICITY 9 | News Grid: creating an ISO will affect investment 16 | High viz WPL biofuel plant ENERGY 6 | Interview Simon Roberts, chief executive, Centre for Sustainable Energy 12 | Analysis What the government should do to boost community energy 22 | Analysis What is a fair price for energy? 24 | Market view Benefits of smart meters must be communicated to consumers 29 | Event Stars Awards 2016 preview Knowledge worth Keeping Visit the DownloaDs section of Utility week's website http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/ downloads Wipro: Digitisation and the Internet of Things http://bit.ly/1LbI3Jt Achilles: How can utility suppliers get noticed by big industry buyers? http://bit.ly/1KaByWW