Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 16TH - 22ND FEBRUARY 2018 | 21 This week Murphy acquires Carillion's power arm Murphy steps in to ensure National Grid's pro- jects will not be disturbed by Carillion's collapse Utilities contractor J Murphy & Sons will take over Carillion's UK projects with National Grid, following the collapse of the con- struction giant last month. Murphy last week announced it had acquired Carillion's UK power framework business for an undisclosed sum. The agreement means the firm will take over Carillion's position on National Grid's electricity overhead lines, substation and underground cable framework contracts. These frameworks will see Murphy work with National Grid to deliver planned replacement and refur- bishment schemes on National Grid's 33kV to 400kV transmission network spanning England and Wales. John Murphy, chief executive at Murphy, said: "This represents an excellent strategic fit for the business, allowing us to bring a full range of services across the power sector for our customers both in the UK and internationally." A spokesperson for National Grid said: "We look forward to working with Murphy on delivering vital electricity infrastructure to help secure Britain's future energy needs. This will build on our long and successful record of working with them on cables, substations, gas pipelines and compressors." The National Grid projects Carillion was working on include a new-build overhead line between the Canter- bury North 400kV substation and a 400kV substation at Richborough in Kent, designed to connect the Nemo interconnector to the grid. KP ENERGY Royal opening for £1bn 'superhighway' Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall officially opened a £1 billion "energy superhighway" carrying high-voltage power cables beneath the streets of central London on 7 February. The seven-year project to "rewire" the capital was under- taken by National Grid to keep up with growing demand and allow ageing infrastructure to be retired. Boring machines were used to cut a 32km network of tunnels from Hackney to Willesden and Kensal Green to Wimbledon, through which 200km of 400kV cables were laid to transmit power around the city. ELECTRICITY Gravitational energy storage gets funding Gravitricity has been awarded £650,000 of government funding to test an innovative energy storage system. Energy will be stored by liing a giant cylindrical "clock weight" up a disused mine- sha using a winch, and then released by lowering the weight back down. The funding from Innovate UK's Infrastructure Systems Innovation competition will be used to design and build a 250kW prototype, ready for testing in late 2018. Over the course of the year, Gravitricity will also develop a design for a full-scale prototype, which is scheduled for deploy- ment in a UK minesha in 2019/20. It claims the technology will have a 50-year lifespan, with no cycle limit or degradation, and a full-cycle efficiency of between 80 and 90 per cent. It will have a rapid response time, going from zero to full power in less than a second, but will also be versatile, with the ability to vary its output by altering the speed at which it operates. WATER United Utilities to use software robots United Utilities is to employ so- ware robots in a drive to "revolu- tionise" customer service. The North West water com- pany has spent £250,000 on ten robots from soware developer Blue Prism and worked with partner Deloitte to monitor its network for faults that could disrupt supply at peak times. The soware robots moni- tor signals and alerts from the water network and automati- cally inform engineers of issues before they affect customers. The Robotic Process Automa- tion will also "streamline" sev- eral of the company's processes, to enable it to respond "more efficiently" to customers. Agreement covers 33kV to 400kV network Stock watch 1,900 1,850 1,800 1,750 1,700 PENNON SHARE PRICE, FIVE DAY 7 Feb 9 Feb 12 Feb 13 Feb SEVERN TRENT SHARE PRICE, FIVE DAY The publicly traded water companies – United Utilities, Severn Trent and Pennon Group – have all seen their share prices slide aer Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell claimed over the weekend that the renationalisation of utilities could be achieved at zero cost to the taxpayer. Pennon Group saw the biggest fall. At the time of publication, its share price had dropped 5.5 per cent since the beginning of the week. 660 640 620 600 8 Feb 9 Feb 12 Feb 13 Feb Finance & Investment 8 Feb 7 Feb pence pence

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