Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 12Th - 18Th MAY 2017 | 5 EnErgY Present and unaccounted for As many as one in 10 customers could be missing from the water market's central database, retailers have claimed, urging wholesalers to follow the example of Anglian Water and pay them to identify missing customers. Retailer Everflow said it has found that, on average, data for 8-10 per cent of customers is missing from the database. Customer services director Josh Gill insisted wholesalers must follow the lead of those that are "more progressive", like Anglian Water, which has put in place cash incentives of £350 per "gap site" – the term for a missing customer. Gill told Utility Week's sister title, Water.Retail, that without incentives it was "not worth retailers' time" to process gap sites – meaning customers could be left out of the market long term. Market Operator Services Limited (MOSL) insisted that data quality has been a "continual area of focus" throughout the market opening process. "The initial challenge ahead of market opening was one of data compliance, in which water companies were required to align their data to the formats set out in the market codes," said chief executive Ben Jeffs. "Given that this data had been collected over many years and extracted from myriad systems, this has been no small feat. The result is that more than 1.4 million premises have been loaded into the central system to enable the market to open on time on 1 April." A spokesperson for Ofwat said: "It is great that there is so much interest in the new market – with retailers entering and exiting, and thousands of customers switching and renegotiating to find the right deal. Retailers and wholesalers are working together to identify any gaps in the system, but we have not seen any evidence to back the assertion that 10 per cent of customers are in 'gap sites'." Read the full article in Water.Retail http://utility-week.co.uk/retail/ "The energy market is working better than many people give it credit for." Stephen Murray, energy expert at Moneysupermarket, warned that customers will see bills go up if an energy retail price cap goes ahead 250,000 A trading update from Centrica for the first three months of 2017 showed the company has shed more than a quarter of a million customers. See story p16. 150,000 tonnes The amount of rock, earth and aggregates so far excavated in the construction of Scottish Water's Shieldhall Tunnel project, which reached a halfway point this week. Manchester City unveiled its latest signing last week – power management company Eaton. The club has joined forces with the international firm to produce a limited-edition version of its xStorage home battery system, which features the football team's logo. Pictured are Eaton's EMEA president, Frank Campbell, and Manchester City's group commercial officer, Tom Glick. Market Operator Service Limited (MOSL) has named former National Rail Enquiries boss Chris Scoggins as its chief executive. Scoggins has worked at board level for more than 15 years – 12 of them in chief executive roles, and seven in non-executive director roles. He has worked in a range of industries, both regulated and non-regulated, across Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. As chief executive of National Rail Enquiries, he led its digital transformation, grew the business eight-fold to become the market- leader while reducing costs, and created a trusted brand with 17 million customers. Scoggins will take up the post in early June from current chief executive, Ben Jeffs. EnErgY Scoggins joins MOSL as chief executive

• Cover