Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 27TH OCTOBER - 2ND NOVEMBER 2017 | 11 Event Views from the speakers: David Gray, chairman, Ofgem "The way consumers interact with the mar- ket changes, so the way we protect them will need to change too." Steve Robertson, chief executive, Thames Water "We need to be realis- tic about the efficacy of water transfer as a solution to water scarcity in its own right… The issue for me in terms of water transfer is that if we don't look at it in con- junction with storage, when you actually need that water, it won't be there." "Why wouldn't you want a smart meter? You wouldn't accept an estimated bill at the supermarket and wait for it to be recon- ciled a year later." Michael Lewis, chief executive, Eon UK Mel Karam, chief executive, Bristol Water "The gap between the technology available and the capability of utilities is increasing and we're not catching up yet." innovative competitors to come into the market". He stressed: "We don't have a price problem in the UK market. What we have is an engagement problem". And it the engagement problem that Eon has moved to overcome by bringing an end to the use of standard vari- able tariffs (SVTs) as default tariffs for customers with smart meters. It is also encouraging the rest of its domestic customers to take on fixed price deals. He welcomed Ofgem's de- cision – in tandem with its price cap announcement – to allow suppliers greater flexibility in the type of tariff customers are rolled on to when their fixed price product comes to an end. Fellow speaker Angela Hepworth, corporate policy and regulation direc- tor at EDF Energy, agreed that more work on engagement, rather than price caps, should be the priority. In the face of government resolve to see a blanket cap, however, Hepworth said it "should apply to all suppliers; it should be time limited; it should be set at a level which as far as possible retains the competitive dynamic in the market; and it must enable suppliers to recover their reasonably incurred costs". The government's draft bill, pub- lished after Hepworth spoke, does provide for some of these require- ments, including a preliminary plan to remove the cap in 2020. However, offering regulatory experience from outside the sector, Jonathan Oxley, group director for competition at Ofcom, warned that, once a regulator "goes in, it is very hard to get out". Sponsored by

• Cover