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UTILITY WEEK | 31ST MARCH - 6TH APRIL 2017 | 5 Jack Riley from Sellafield won the UK Nuclear Apprentice of the Year Award at the UK Nuclear Skills Awards. Riley completed an Advanced Scientific Apprenticeship and currently works in analyst/technical support at Sellafield. He represents his company on the board of the North West Young Apprentice Ambassador Network and is also a STEM Ambassador. 45% The proportion of consumers who say they are less willing to buy a product or service if it has complex terms and conditions, according to customer communications group Communisis. Poor could be left paying more as wealthy switch "There absolutely is a theoretical risk of numerous death spirals happening in the utilities sector," Npower's head of regulation has told Utility Week. As more engaged and affluent energy customers switch away from large suppliers, Chris Harris said supplier cost-to-serve per customer could rise, leaving the poor paying more for their energy and ballooning bad debt in the sector. Eventually, this could lead to a major supplier bankruptcy. "This is something that needs to be looked at," insisted Harris. "Ofgem's evidence in its Social Obligations Report shows that the incumbent customer demographic is including more customers who are in debt or arrears. That is not indicative of their customer service. It is indicative of their demographic." This means suppliers face "death spirals" similar to those speculated about for energy networks should a large proportion of customers move off grid while the costs of running the system increase. ENERGY REA appoints Trevaskis as head of EVs Matthew Trevaskis has been appointed head of electric vehicles at the Renewable Energy Association (REA). Trevaskis's new role at the REA is to champion the use of ultra-low emissions vehicles, such as plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles, in the UK. He will grow the REA's EV offering, focusing on the integra- tion of EVs into the electricity grid, the need for new infrastructure, government energy, transport, and planning policy, and the potential for EVs to act as a form of distrib- uted storage. EXECUTIVE MOVE The first edition of the Global Energy Talent Index gained input from almost 16,000 energy sector professionals working across energy sec- tors including: power genera- tion, nuclear, renewables, oil and gas and petrochemicals. The index was compiled by Energy Job Line and workforce soware provider Airswi. The Global Energy Talent Index How attitudes to the skills gap vary by geographic region "A great deal of money and time has been wasted on this very inefficiently designed policy, but there is still time to change tack" Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, advocating a last-minute overhaul of the UK smart meter rollout.