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UTILITY WEEK | 3RD - 9TH JUNE 2016 | 5 At the Ise-Shima summit in Japan last week, the G7 nations agreed a landmark deal to end most fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. The leaders of the UK, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union signed a joint declaration to "accelerate [their] work towards the … decarbonisation of the global economy" and eliminate "inefficient fossil fuel subsidies" by 2025. 50% The Department of Energy and Climate Change said the output from coal power plants fell by around 50 per cent in the first three months of 2016. "The industry as a whole needs to start to stand on its own two feet" SSE director of generation development Paul Cooley says renewables can no longer rely on public subsidy. UK bathing waters worst in EU The UK has the highest proportion of bathing water sites rated "poor quality" in the European Union (EU), results from the European Environment Agency's (EEA) an- nual bathing water report show. The EEA report compiles analy- sis sampled at more than 21,000 coastal and inland bathing sites across the EU, Switzerland and Albania, indicating whether or not it has been contaminated by faecal pollution from sewage or livestock. The UK had the second-highest number of poor bathing water sites in the continent in 2015, behind only Albania, which is not an EU member. Out of a total of 633 UK bathing sites, 31 or 4.9 per cent of beaches were regarded as "poor quality", while only 59.6 per cent achieved a top rating. Only Roma- nia and Slovakia had lower levels of "excellent" bathing waters. This is the first report under a newer, tougher ratings regime. The UK saw the number of bathing spots ranked as "excellent" fall by 4 per cent, while the number of "poor" rated spots increased by almost 2 per cent. Competition 'paves way' for tie-ups Competition in the water retail market could pave the way for multi-utility consolidation, according to the chief executive of Pennon. Chris Loughlin told Utility Week the opening of the non-household retail market to competition in April next year could mean consolidation between utilities and more multi- utility opportunities. However, he said this would be more likely to happen if market opening extended to domestic cus- tomers, as mooted by the Treasury in its last Autumn Statement. WATER WATER The cost of CCS-enabled gas generation would come down quickly over the first several deployments, according to a report released by the Energy Technologies Institute. It calculates that the levelised cost of energy for a demonstration plant in the UK would be around £150/MWh. It estimates that economies of scale, the sharing of infrastructure and cheaper capital due to lower risks would bring down costs by around 45 per cent by the time a third full-scale plant was built. Driving down the cost of CCS £/MWh levelised cost of electricity from gas-fired CCS plants Demonstration plant Plant 1 Bigger scale, less contingency, leaner Plant 2 Share pipeline and CO2 store with Plant 1 Plant 3 Lower cost of capital (plant proven by Plant 1) Plant 4 Gen 2. New capture technology (lower cost but unproven so added risk) Plant 5 Gen 2 capture technology (lower risk, proven by Plant 4) Plant 6 Gen 3 gives near "free" CO2 capture First demonstration unit deployments level (potentially the former 'commercialisation' project) Deployment benefits Scope and scale, infrastructure sharing, lowering cost of capital 45% cost reduction Technology innovation benefits 5-10% cost reduction 160 150 140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 £ £ £