Utility Week

Customers 28 | 27TH APRIL - 3RD MAY 2018 | UTILITY WEEK An independent commission set up to improve support for vulnerable energy customers has appointed five commis- sioners and published a call for evidence. The commissioners are: Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust; Simon Crine, director at the Money and Mental Health Policy Unit; Caroline Wells, co-founder of ENERGY Energy vulnerability commission announces members of panel disabled access review website MeIncluded; Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independ- ent Age; and Audrey Gallacher, director of retail energy supply at Energy UK. The commission, launched by Energy UK in February, will draw on examples from charities and businesses with experience of working directly with people in vulnerable circumstances to highlight good practice. Commissioners will consider how the actions of energy sup- pliers, government departments, the regulator and other stake- holders affect care and support for energy customers in difficult circumstances. Lord Whitty, chair of the commission, said: "Identifying and helping those in vulnerable circumstances is a complex and This week Ovo customers won't pay to drive their EVs CEO says driver participation in grid balancing means EV charging will effectively be free Customers of Ovo Energy who own electric vehicles (EVs) "will never need to pay for a mile of driving again", aer the supplier launched a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging technology. The bold pledge was made by Ovo's chief executive Stephen Fitzpatrick at an event in London where the supplier unveiled its V2G smart charger and two other new products – a home energy storage device and a non-V2G smart charger. The V2G charging technology, with a charge and discharge rating of 6kW – will be available from this summer and is touted as the first of its kind. It will enable EV drivers – initially only Nissan Leaf and e-NV200 owners – to participate in markets for balancing services to the grid, so they can be paid for excess power stored in their vehicles at peak times. Describing the technology to customers, Fitzpatrick said: "Our drivers will decide exactly how much of their battery power they use in energy trading. But because electricity at peak times is about five times more valu- able than off peak, leaving just a fraction of that battery capacity as reserve power will mean customers using V2G will never need to pay for a mile of driving again." Like its new home battery and smart charger, Ovo's V2G charger will interact with the company's proprietary "intelligent energy" platform, VCharge. This platform can connect with millions of dis- tributed energy devices and uses advanced machine intelligence to prompt decisions that will help maintain stability in the power system in a low-carbon future. In 2017, Ovo bought a range of companies with both soware and hardware specialisms in the smart energy space, especially relating to EVs. JG ELECTRICITY Plan to let customers have many suppliers Elexon has outlined proposals to adapt the Balancing and Settle- ment Code (BSC) central services to enable customers to buy power from multiple suppliers. The code administrator says the reforms would facilitate the creation of innovative business models, such as peer-to-peer trading and rapid switching, which are currently "difficult or impossible to bring to market". Elexon noted that Ofgem is considering moving away from the "supplier hub" principle, under which consumers can, in most instances, buy power from only a single supplier. Ofgem has described this as a barrier to innovation. The paper says that any change would likely have "far- reaching impacts across the complete spectrum of industry governance". Elexon has sug- gested some more "modest" reforms that could be enacted faster, "as early as 2020". The firm said custom- ers would continue to have a "default" supplier that would be responsible for metering and settlement. However, the reforms would enable them to buy electric- ity from other parties as well by providing a mechanism to amend their default suppliers' imbalance positions and inform the suppliers of any adjustments so they can alter their billing. Elexon said, although this could not be mandated by a modification to the BSC, default suppliers would ideally share these adjustments with their customers by way of a consoli- dated bill, showing the volume (but not cost) of energy pur- chased from other parties. ENERGY 'Make older smart meters interoperable' Suppliers will be obliged to take "all reasonable steps" to enrol SMETS1 meters in the Data Com- munication Company (DCC), or replace them with fully interop- erable SMETS2 devices, under government plans. A consultation paper on the next steps under the smart meter implementation plan, published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, outlines the government's plans to encourage the rollout of fully interoperable SMETS2 meters. The paper says that "less than half " of SMETS1 consum- ers that switch energy supplier have been able to retain smart services on their existing meter. The government is proposing to introduce an obligation on energy suppliers to take "all rea- sonable steps" to enrol SMETS1 meters in the DCC within a "specified timeframe". As a backstop, suppliers would be required to replace any SMETS1 device that has not been enrolled with a SMETS2 meter by the end of 2020 when the smart meter rollout is scheduled to end. The Nissan Leaf is one of the cars supported challenging issue for the energy industry and for front line sup- pliers in other sectors. Financial difficulties, disability, physical and mental health problems and life-changing events can put any of us in that situation – tempo- rarily or over the longer term." The deadline for evidence is 30 May and a final report will be published towards the end of 2018.

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