1. The big six chief executives would do well to resolve that there will be no more price rises before the 2015 election. With Scottish Power, Npower and SSE announcing a price cut this week, all six have now passed savings from the green levy rollback on to customers. If all the suppliers hold off from their seasonal price rises later this year, they just might be able to take the wind out of Ed Miliband’s sails. Hiking up prices in the run-up to the election in anticipation of a price freeze could have the opposite effect.
2. Canny water company bosses will be eager in their resolve to sign up to Ofwat’s forthcoming guidance on risk and reward – and swallow a cut in allowed cost of capital in the process. Those that do so have the prospect of “pre-qualifying” for enhanced status, and getting on with the small matter of AMP6.
3. Incoming Ofgem chief executive Dermot Nolan may well be resolving to keep himself in a job beyond next year, by saving the energy regulator from the chop. He could try to reassure sceptical politicians, media and the public that the gummy watchdog does indeed have teeth by coming out hard in the so-called “competition audit”, and using this first report to call for a full CMA enquiry.
4. Politicians of all colours would be well advised to remember who holds the purse strings as they act out their Punch and Judy show of energy policy. While the coalition fractures and Labour heckles from the sidelines, increasingly twitchy investors are eyeing rival opportunities across the globe. Politicians seem to be forgetting that their grand schemes for energy reform will not be enacted without the investment to pay for them. Ed Davey’s apparently casual dismissal of the hundreds of millions of pounds of investment lined up for Eggborough’s conversion to biomass is a case in point (p18).
5. If certain national media and politicians are anything to go by, network bosses should make just one resolution: stop any future storms. Simples!