Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 27TH APRIL - 3RD MAY 2018 | 5 ENERGY Former Npower boss Paul Massara takes helm at Electron Paul Massara, the former chief execu- tive of Npower, has been appointed chief executive of British blockchain company Electron, as it looks to grow with new investment. Massara has been a director on the company's board for a year and takes over from Paul Ellis, who will become executive chairman. Jo-Jo Hubbard remains chief operating officer. Most recently chief executive of North Star Solar, Massara joins with more than 25 years' experience in the energy sector across the UK, Europe and North America. Utility Week Stars Awards shortlist revealed This week the shortlist for Utility Week's prestigious Stars Awards was revealed. The awards recognise the heroes of the utility sector who have gone above and beyond to keep the lights on and the water and gas flowing across the nation and in all weathers. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Manchester on 29 June. More details of all companies and individuals up for an award will be published in the next issue of Utility Week, and a full listing can be found on our website at: https://bit.ly/2HKhs9O ELECTRICITY Service will put DSR on balancing mechanism Flexitricity is launching an energy trading service called Flexitricity+ that it claims will "crack open" the balancing mechanism to demand- side response (DSR). The balancing mechanism is used by National Grid daily to match supply and demand and is a market worth £350 million a year. Currently, energy users can only sell DSR in the balancing mecha- nism through their supplier. Flexitricity says the incumbents also own generation and therefore have little incentive to do this. Flexitricity has become a licensed supplier, giving it direct access to the balancing mecha- nism, where it will aggregate its customers' DSR. Energy users who wish to use the service will need to sign up with Flexitricity as their supplier. "There's a customer base out there who could do more if they had the opportunity," said founder and chief strategy officer Alastair Mar- tin. "We're cracking open the most important market in flexible energy for those who can both earn from it and contribute to it." Scottish Water is about to start a major project on its wastewater infrastructure in Glasgow to improve the environment and water quality in the River Kelvin. In the first stage, £2.5 million will be spent on improvements to key wastewater infrastructure in Hillhead and Kelvingrove Park. The project is part of Scottish Water's £250 million, five-year programme to improve river water quality and the natural environment across the Greater Glasgow area. 140,000 Number of households in Britain that have gone without gas or electricity because they didn't have money to top up their prepayment meter, according to Citizens Advice. 474,235 The number of electricity customers who switched in March, according to Energy UK, down on 536,658 for the same month in 2017. Switching figures remained steady for the first quarter of this year. "One of the biggest challenges we have is that cyber-attacks on industry tend not to be reported, or not be reported very well" Speaking at the International Utility and Energy Conference in Paris, Stuart Madnick, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said utilities must be prepared to deal with the aftermath of increasingly unavoidable attacks.

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