Utility Week

4 | 17TH - 23RD NOVEMBER 2017 | UTILITY WEEK STORY BY NUMBERS Seven days... National media Trump touts big energy deals in Asia US President Donald Trump wrapped up a 12-day tour of Asia on Tuesday, which he said created $300 billion (£228 billion) in sales to companies in the region and several major energy deals. Energy agreements made up roughly half the total value of deals in China. If it proceeds, a project in Alaska would mark the first major investment by a Chinese energy firm in the US. But analysts have doubts over whether this, and other, multi-billion dollar projects will be realised. BBC News, 14 November China aims to stop renewable energy being wasted by 2020 China aims to prevent power generated by its renewable energy sector being wasted by 2020, the country's National Energy Adminis- tration (NEA) said this week. Power from wind, solar and hydro plants is oen wasted because there is not enough transmission capacity to absorb it, leading to high curtail- ment rates, especially in northwest- ern China. Reuters, 13 November Water contaminated on oil platform Workers on an oil platform were told to drink only bottled water aer the water supply became contami- nated. The alarm was raised aer workers smelled diesel while having a shower. The incident happened on BP's Magnus platform, about 160km northeast of Shetland. BP said very low level contamination was detected but not enough to be a danger to health. BBC News, 9 November Npower merger with SSE 'must not hurt customers' L abour has urged the government's competition watchdog to ensure the planned merger between the retail energy arms of SSE and Innogy does not hurt customer choice. It was confirmed last week that Innogy's British retail busi- ness, Npower, will be merged with SSE's household energy and energy services business to form a new, independent retail energy company. Responding to the announce- ment of the tie-up, Rebecca Long Bailey, shadow secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, said: "The energy market is broken in the UK. A merger of two of the biggest players, which may diminish competition, should therefore be subject to proper scrutiny. "If the relevant legislative thresholds are met, then the Competition and Markets Authority should seek to satisfy themselves that there will not be a substantial lessening of competition through this transaction. "This is why Labour want to set up local publicly owned companies to rival the big six and increase competition." Alex Neill, managing director of home products and services at Which?, said: "Mergers of such big players in essential markets such as energy are rarely a good thing for consum- ers, especially given the low levels of competition. "As both businesses struggle on customer service, coming in the bottom half of our satisfac- tion survey, the competition authorities must take a hard look before allowing any venture to go ahead." The new company will not be controlled by either Innogy or SSE. Innogy will hold a minority stake of 34.4 per cent in the business, while SSE plans to demerge its 65.6 per cent stake to its shareholders upon comple- tion of the transaction. DB "In order to be a really successful energy company, we need scale and skills – and this deal will deliver both" Npower chief executive Paul Coffey discussing the company's financial results and its merger with SSE's domestic retail operations. Teenagers get savvy about energy saving A survey by renewable energy company Pure Planet found that teenagers are nag- ging their parents to save energy in their homes. It found: 51% of children have told their parents to turn the lights off to save energy. 35% have urged them to walk or cycle rather than use the car in order to cut their carbon emis- sions footprint. 40% of 16- and 17-year- olds have asked their parents to turn the heating down to save energy. 22% of the family members surveyed believed the broth- ers of the house- hold wasted the most energy in the house, while 16% blamed sisters, 15% dads and 13% mums.

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