Utility Week articles from August 2004

Utility Week archives from August 2004

TELECOMS; Internet firms to help users switch.(Code)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Sixteen leading broadband service providers, including BT and Thus, have signed up to a code of practice to better enable internet customers to switch supplier. The code is a self-regulatory initiative, developed independently of...

WATER; Aquavitae to appeal against Albion ruling.(Water Act 2003)(Competition Appeals Tribunal)(Aquavitae)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Would-be water retailer Aquavitae has intervened in the row between Albion Water and Ofwat over the access prices charged by Welsh Water. It has appealed to the Competition Appeals Tribunal on the grounds that its own business is jeopardised by...

TELECOMS; Mobile operators fight VAT decision.(Value-added tax)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Mobile telecoms operators could set a European precedent for tax refunds on telecoms licence fees after anAustrian judge referred a case to the European Court. The Austrian lawsuit was brought by eight mobile operators which own third...

ELECTRICITY; Austrian green energy row.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Austrian government support for green energy has driven a wedge between environment minister Josef Proll and economics minister Martin Bartenstein. The former has complained that the latter's draft new support rules for renewable...

electricity; British Energy refuses to budge on restructuring.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... British Energy's board stuck to its guns last week despite heavy shelling from a group of shareholders seeking to improve the offer available under the government's rescue plan for the struggling generator. British Energy has threatened to...

ELECTRICITY; Delay to Betta could hit Scottish grid revenues.(British Electricity Trading and Transmission Arrangements)(Price controls)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Scottish energy companies could face revenue cuts next year if the Britain-wide power market misses its start date. In its draft price controls for the transmission arms of ScottishPower and Scottish and Southern Energy, Ofgem has...

GAS; BG in [pounds sterling]2.5m Kazakhstan tax dispute.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Gas producer BG is being investigated by Kazakhstan's government for an alleged underpayment of more than [pounds sterling]2.5 million in taxes. The disputed payments emerged after a 'routine' tax assessment by the Kazakh authorities,...

TELECOMS; Broadband boosts BT sales.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... BT's broadband end-users soared to 2.7 million at 30 June, eclipsing its largest rival in the retail sector, NTL. BT revealed in its first quarter 2004 results that turnover from its new wave division, which includes broadband, had risen...

ENERGY; Cogeneration still in the doldrums, report reveals.(Heat and power sector)(Digest of UK Energy Statistics)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... The UK's combined heat and power (cogen) sector remained in the doldrums last year, according to annual government figures. The 2004 Digest of UK Energy Statistics, just published, highlighted that 2003 was another difficult year for the...

ELECTRICITY; DTI mulls carbon capture and storage in green plan.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Whitehall has begun work on a Carbon Abatement Technologies (CAT) strategy to replace the Department of Trade and Industry's cleaner coal technology programme. Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration would play a major role in the...

TELECOMS; Cable firms play it cool on merger.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Restructured cable companies NTL and Telewest showed no signs of merger intentions as they released second quarter results boosted by broadband. The two firms, now both listed in the US, posted huge rises in broadband subscriber numbers....

MULTI-UTILITY; Centrica says energy bills may have to rise again.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Centrica has warned that energy bills may have to rise a second time this year, despite evidence that a 6 per cent increase in gas prices in January prompted a slide in its residential market share. Immediately after the January price rise...

TELECOMS; Irish mobile operators face forced fee cut.(ComReg )(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Four of Ireland's largest mobile telecoms operators could be forced to reduce their call termination fees, after a market review by telecoms regulator ComReg designated them as having significant market power. Vodafone, MMO2, Meteor and...

ENERGY; EDP bags Hidro in e1.2bn deal.
August 13, 2004... by Trevor Dooley Portugal's dominant power group, Electricidade de Portugal, (EDP) has taken control of Spain's Hidrocantabrico with the acquisition of an additional 56.2 per cent stake. But the e1.2 billion deal has brought a mixed...

WATER; Ofwat takes a tough line on efficiency.
August 13, 2004... by Karma Ockenden Water companies last week faced the prospect of renewed pressure to cut costs after Ofwat announced that efficiency expectations were 40 per cent up on company estimates as part of its draft review of prices for 2005-10....

ENVIRONMENT; German firm to fight carbon trade in court.(Emissions Trading Scheme)(National Allocation Plan)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... by Roger Milne A major German cement-maker has launched a legal challenge to the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme. Heidelberg Cement has taken its case to Germany's constitutional court and asked it to deliver a ruling before...

ENERGY; Energy savings on track.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Energy regulator Ofgem has admitted to ministers that it is impossible to say 'with any certainty' how many consumers benefit from the government's energy saving programme. However, Ofgem strategy director Boaz Moselle estimated that 10...

Eon on a roll.
August 13, 2004... Eon's seemingly unrelenting progress to strengthen its position as Europe's most powerful utility has been further boosted by the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding with Russia's omnipotent gas company, Gazprom, in which it holds a...

Water can be a witches' brew.
August 13, 2004... Not many people know this but this year Tajikstan is celebrating 100 years of having an oil and gas industry. The country (small, mountainous and north of Afghanistan) gained independence from the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s but...

ELECTRICITY; SSE bags 4GW coal plant in [pounds sterling]250m deal.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... by Trevor Dooley After months of speculation, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE)last week bought two 2GW power stations from US energy group AEP in a deal worth [pounds sterling]250 million. SSE paid [pounds sterling]136 million for...

TELECOMS; Mobile figures prop up incumbents.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... The first half-year results of former fixed-line telecoms incumbents France Telecom and Telefonica, of Spain, have been propped up by their mobile operations. France Telecom reported revenues ahead of analysts' expectations, up 1.4 per...

GAS; Belgian gas pipe blast probe ongoing.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Investigations into the Belgian gas blast are still under way, a fortnight after the accident involving a pipeline operated by Fluxys killed 18, including emergency service workers. The blast ripped through a section of the underground...

ENERGY; Germany beefs up competition rules.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... The German government has approved a draft law to strengthen competition in the energy sector. The Bill, which will set up a regulatory authority for the gas and electricity sectors, should become law by next spring, more than six months after...

WATER; Greece in hot water over sludge leaks.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... The Greek government is being taken to the European Court of Justice for allowing sludge from a new wastewater treatment plant to leach into the environment, polluting air and water supplies. The European Commission has alleged that Greece...

ELECTRICITY; IPower leads Edison buyout.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... A consortium led by International Power has bought the 5.4GW international generation portfolio of US group Edison Mission Energy for [pounds sterling]1.28 billion. International formed a 70:30 joint venture with Japanese industrial giant...

Price fix.(Banks Automated Clearing System)
August 13, 2004... Smart utilities pay regular fixed fees for their IT services not an upfront lump sum or for services as they use them. . David Chalmers explains. BACS, the payment processing service, stated in May that people in Britain are losing out on...

GAS; Regulator wants gas suppliers' tariffs cut.(Autorita Energia)(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... by Simon Jones Italy's energy authority has warned that it plans to impose sharper price cuts on local gas suppliers in the next four-year regulatory period from October. Autorita Energia said it wanted to cut the sector's pre-tax...

PAN-UTILITY; Utilities among slowest payers.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Power and gas companies were among the slowest payers in a survey that revealed UK industry to have slowed down in meeting bills in the five years since law changes to curb the late payment. According to findings from research by market...

Poker faced.(electricity industry regulations)
August 13, 2004... Not so long ago Professor Stephen Littlechild - then the electricity industry regulator - insisted one of his key tasks was to make his job redundant. That was in the days when belief was strong in the notion that competition was the ultimate...

WATER; Target on leaks missed as a few let down the rest.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Most water companies met or beat their leakage targets for 2003/04, but total leakage rose slightly to 3,650 megalitres a day (Ml/d), 165Ml/d over target. This was because of the poor performance of a handful of companies. Leakage at worst...

Top billing.
August 13, 2004... Sir: improvements in gas billing accuracy have been too long delayed. I was therefore encouraged to read (Utility Week, 16 July) that Energywatch has proposed the introduction of a British standard for gas billing and that Ofgem has publicly...

WATER; Ofwat parks interim licence shifts.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Ofwat has parked a raft of water company licence changes dealing with interim price determinations that it had intended to bundle with the 2005-10 price review. The regulator expected water companies to adopt the changes if they accepted...

MULTI-UTILITY; Price controls hit McAlpine's utility margins.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Utility management commitment to price reviews has hit revenue at Alfred McAlpine's infrastructure operations. But the construction group forecasted a surge in business from the sector, which makes up one-third of its business. ...

telecoms; Mobiles to add [pounds sterling]33bn to UK.(gross domestic product)(Centre for Economic and Business Research)
August 13, 2004... by Zoe Grainge The mobile telecoms industry could contribute 2.5 per cent of the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2008, and by 2013 productivity in the sector could reach nearly four times the national average. A report by the...

Watchdog urges higher fines.(Environment Agency)(Survey of energy industry)
August 13, 2004... Tougher penalties for polluters are urgently needed, according to the Environment Agency (EA) whose latest survey of environmental performance by businesses in England and Wales has just been published. The average fine for businesses...

Severn Trent.
August 13, 2004... by Zoe Grainge Customers of Birmingham-based Severn Trent Water will see their household water bill rise by an average of 3.5 per cent over the next five years. This follows water regulator Ofwat's draft determination on prices. The...

ONE.(Interview)
August 13, 2004... minute interview Name Nigel Mason Age 40 (just) Company GDC Job title Business development manager with GDC spatial systems integrator, responsible for the utilities market. career history ...

Power to the people.(Northern Ireland Electricity)
August 13, 2004... Apprenticeships may have had a bad press in the past, but schemes where employees can learn on the job could help stem the utility industry's skills shortage. Advances in the way apprentices are trained and skilled at Northern Ireland...

ELECTRICITY; Policy favours clean energy projects.(clean energy projects)
August 13, 2004... by Roger Milne Windfarm developers in particular and green energy promoters in general have welcomed new government planning advice which should make it harder for councils to reject schemes. The new guidance, now official Whitehall...

Climate change back centre stage.
August 13, 2004... July and August used to be journalistically and politically the silly season: not any more (or at least not this summer). Both environment minister Elliot Morley, energy minister Stephen Timms and his departmental 'boss', trade and industry...

MULTI-UTILITY; RWE cautious despite good interim results.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... German multi-utility RWE was punished by the financial markets this week for issuing a cautious outlook for the coming year, despite beating analysts' expectations with its first half-year results. The company reaffirmed its positive...

Brands hatch.(energy market research)
August 13, 2004... With more than two-thirds of energy sector new entrants across Europe anticipating more competition the question has to be - where is it going to come from? Research from market analyst Datamonitor indicates big players are set to put the...

WATER; Struggling sewers do more harm than blockages.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Overloaded drains are responsible for customers' worst sewer flooding experiences, according to Ofwat research into how customers feel after a flood. The survey, published as Ofwat announced funds to protect around half of the 8,800...

MULTI-UTILITY; Revenue growth at Suez beats hits from disposals.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... First half year growth at Suez outstripped the effect of disposals and price fluctuations to leave revenues 2.4 per cent up on the previous year at e19.9 billion. Organic growth in the six months to 30 June 2004 stood at 5.2 per cent (e944...

WATER; Culligan sale ends Veolia's US withdrawal.(Brief Article)
August 13, 2004... Veolia Environnement is close to whittling down its US presence to outsourcing with the sale of its last water treatment subsidiary, Culligan. Subject to regulatory approval, Culligan will be sold to private equity firm Clayton Dubilier &...