Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 29TH JUNE - 5TH JULY 2018 | 5 ENERGY Ofgem appoints new chairman Energy price cap champion Martin Cave has been chosen to become the new chair of Ofgem. Subject to a pre-appointment hearing by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee (sched- uled this week), Cave will take over from current chair David Gray when his term ends in September. Cave was a deputy chair of the Competition Commission from 2012 before the watchdog was wound up in 2014. He went on to serve as deputy chair on the panel that undertook the energy market review for the Competition and Markets Authority. (CMA). In his minority report for the review, Cave concluded the CMA's proposed remedies "did not go far enough" and called for more drastic interventions, notably a two-year cap on suppliers' standard variable tariffs. ELECTRICITY UK still the biggest offshore wind generator The UK has retained the top spot as the largest offshore wind market in the world, according to a report by RenewableUK. The UK has the largest national portfolio in the world with 35.2GW, followed by Germany (23.4GW) and Taiwan (8.3GW). The trade body's latest figures do not include possi- ble extensions of existing windfarms totalling nearly 3GW recently announced by the Crown Estate. The British offshore wind indus- try recently announced details of its 2030 vision for the sector, which would see an additional 30GW of capacity installed, providing 30 per cent of UK power needs. 2.1GW The UK is the slowest growing market among the top 20 global photovoltaic markets, expected to add just 2.1GW until 2022, according to SolarPowerEurope. United Utilities and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) won the Large Scale Conservation Award at this year's Chartered Institute for Ecology and Environmental Management's Annual Awards for their work at Dove Stone in the Peak District. Pictured is blanket bog restoration at Dove Stone, where helicopters deliver loads of sphagnum moss onto the moor, ready for volunteers to plant. "I don't think we will hit the target… and I think there needs to be a good look at why" Antoinette Sandbach, chair of the BEIS select committee, speaking at the Utility Week Energy Summit in London about the slow progress of the smart meter rollout. The annual cost of integrating electric vehicles (EVs) into the energy system could be cut by up to a half by 2030 through a combination of smart and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging, according to a report produced by Vivid Economics on behalf of WWF. The study examined two scenarios – one in which the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel vehicles is banned in 2040, and another in which the ban is introduced a decade earlier. Change in total electricity system costs in 2030 (£bn) THE COST OF INCORPORATING ELECTRIC VEHICLES INTO THE ENERGY SYSTEM Standard Smart V2G Standard Smart V2G 2040 phase out 2030 phase out Distribution Generation Source: WWF, analysis by Vivid Economics, modelling by Imperial College 0.3 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.0 3.3 1.2 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.1 2.1 5 4 3 2 1 0

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