Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 13TH - 19TH APRIL 2018 | 5 WATER Yorkshire gender pay gap is lower than the average Yorkshire Water has revealed it has a 4.8 per cent mean gender pay gap compared with the national average of 17.4 per cent. The company also has a 4.7 per cent median gap and said on average female employees receive a higher bonus than their male colleagues. The overall percentage of females who receive a bonus is "marginally higher" than for males, the company said. Yorkshire Water and its sister company Loop Customer Manage- ment released their gender pay gap figures for 3,500 employees at the beginning of April. Richard Flint, Yorkshire Water's chief executive, said: "Although our gender pay gap figures are signifi- cantly below the national average, we are in no way complacent with our current levels of gender diver- sity. We want to properly reflect the communities we serve. "This reporting is just the first step in a series of measures that will help us to improve not just our gender balance, but the overall diversity of our whole workforce." The company said it would pub- lish a full report, detailing levels of diversity along with how it plans to improve, over the next few years. Loop Customer Management has a mean pay gap of 5.5 per cent and a median of minus 2 per cent due to its high levels of female employees, the company said. ENERGY Co-op Energy moves to acquire Flow Energy Co-op Energy has moved to buy Flow Energy for a headline £9.25 million. If the deal goes ahead, it will rep- resent a major mid-market merger in the UK's domestic energy retail sector, combining Flow's customer base of around 130,000 with Co- op's base of more than 350,000. Co-op's offer to Flow will be subject to scrutiny at the latter's company meeting next month. If accepted, it would include the sale of Flow's entire share capital in its retail business. The future of Flow Energy has been the subject of market specu- lation for some time. In 2017 the supplier indicated it was considering disposal of its retail unit in order to focus more heavily on the development of its smart boiler business in Europe. Subsequently, however, it reversed this decision, deciding to concentrate on retail with the back- ing of a US-based investor while mothballing its boiler business. "Decarbonisation, digitisation and decentralisation are driving revolution in the energy sector, and networks are on the front line of delivering the innovation making that happen" David Smith, chief executive of the Energy Networks Association, on publication of the organisation's first iterations of its joint innovation strategies for gas and electricity networks. Northumbrian Water will power all 1,858 of its sites using renewable electricity for the next four years after signing a deal worth more than £100 million with Danish energy supplier Orsted (formerly Dong). The deal will help Northumbrian Water achieve 125,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide savings a year – more than 600 times the weight of the Angel of the North. Orsted supplies renewable electricity from nine offshore windfarms in the UK, with the energy backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin. 1.5m Number of homes in the UK using a smart thermostat, according to research and consultancy firm Delta-ee. £2.6m Northumbrian Water has been granted planning permission to carry out a £2.6 million upgrade to its sewer network at New Brancepeth in County Durham. 5.5% British Gas is raising its standard variable tariff by an average 5.5 per cent from 29 May, blaming rising wholesale and policy costs, including the smart meter rollout and emissions reduction schemes. 93 Number of tariffs out of the cheapest 100 that do not support programmes helping vulnerable customers, according to First Utility.

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