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Recent confirmation from the Tory Party chairman that relocating the upper chamber from the capital
4 years ago
The government has banned Huawei from providing 5G equipment for nuclear power stations as part of a wider crackdown on the Chinese telecommunications giant.
The European Commission has admitted that energy relations with the UK will not be “business as usual” after Brexit, with the country expected to leave the single electricity market and its tools. Utility Week has seen slides presented by the Commission at an energy summit this month which call for “strong level playing field guarantees”.
A new report from National Grid says that 117,000 more jobs are needed in the industry over the next decade alone. The report lists a number of workforce challenges including the “baby boomer retirement crunch” and competition from other sectors, with 40 per cent of physics graduates currently opting for careers in banking and finance.
Fresh delays have been announced on the decision dates for giant offshore windfarms being developed by Vattenfall and Orsted.
The Energy Ombudsman told Utility Week's Customer Summit that now consumers have become accustomed to the price cap, it will be difficult to remove. Ofgem director Anthony Pygram was also speaking at the event and said the Conservative manifesto was not very clear on the next steps for the cap.
A leading energy academic, who has been chosen to advise the new Climate Assembly, has warned it is “one hell of a job” to decarbonise the UK economy by 2050. He was speaking ahead of the first meeting of the Assembly, which brings together 110 members of the public to try to reach consensus on the net-zero journey.
Heat pumps and networks look set to be the principal means of keeping Wales’ new homes warm from 2025, according to new draft building regulations. The Welsh government’s revisions to the regulations which govern energy use in new housing say there that while there may be a role for hydrogen in heating the homes of the future, it expects heat networks and pumps to be the principal source of low-carbon heating.
The Mayor of London has pledged to make the capital the biggest city in the world to be carbon neutral by that start of the next decade. He said: “There’s no doubt that it’s an ambitious target and that it’s going to be hard for our city to meet, but unless London is really stretched we won’t meet the changes that we desperately need.”
In this weekend’s press round-up: Conservative MP John Penrose says consumers are still being ripped off after Theresa May introduced the “wrong kind” of price cap; Octopus Energy acquires 70,000 customers from French energy firm Engie; and water companies defy Ofwat by paying out hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends.
With the renationalisation debate kicked into the long grass and investors unexpectedly contemplating political certainty in the UK, what is 2020 likely to bring for the utilities sector? Nigel Hawkins gives his view.
What does the anticipated regional focus of the new government mean for utilities? Utility Week's policy correspondent, David Blackman, discusses.