Utility Week articles from November 2004

Utility Week archives from November 2004

TELECOMS; BT Retail causes rowwith unbundling bid.(British Telecommunications)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Zoe Grainge A row erupted within BT last week following BT Retail's chief executive Pierre Danon's reported request to unbundle the telecoms company's local lines from BT Wholesale. In the run-up to Ofcom's report on the second...

ENERGY; Energywatch slams number of bill moans.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Domestic suppliers have clashed with consumer watchdog Energywatch over the scale of dissatisfaction with billing. Last week Energywatch's Allan Asher claimed that, on average, a third of customers contact companies every quarter with...

TELECOMS; Record numbers quit BT for rival operators.(Simplyswitch)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Zoe Grainge A record number of consumers have switched to non-BT fixed line services, according to the latest market report by regulator Ofcom. In the last quarter, 500,000 customers jumped ship from BT to carrier pre-selection...

eNVIRONMENT; Carbon trade challenge falls over in court.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... A bid by German cement maker HeidelbergCement to block the start of the European Union's emissions trading scheme (ETS) next January has failed. The company went to an administrative court in Germany, but its call for a year's delay was...

South Staffordshire plc.(Echo)
November 5, 2004... by Trevor Dooley Last week, just over six months after de-merging from its home services business, the water business has been acquired by a private equity buyer. South Staffordshire Water demerged because the water business's...

WATER; Laws fall short but Ofwat OK on competition.(United Kingdom Office of Water Services)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... As Ofwat put out proposals on regulations to govern the competitive water market, a leading competition lawyer questioned the legal process behind the change. Mark Jones, partner at Norton Rose, said: 'I question how desirable it is to...

Got to be shore.(outsourcing)
November 5, 2004... With the increasing, and highly visible, flow of call centre jobs to offshore locations such as India, the Philippines, Mexico and South Africa, it is evident that major organisations are finding it hard to resist the siren call of...

Bird's eye view.(customer surveys)
November 5, 2004... Surveys can give utilities an overarching picture of customer habits and tastes . Ian Hubbard says use them to inform your marketing strategy. Recent years have seen a shift in the balance of marketing effort expended on winning new...

ENERGY; Danish grid merger would up rating.(Elkraft Transmission)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... The proposed merger of Denmark's three power transmission companies, Eltra, Elkraft System and Elkraft Transmission, with gas transmission firm Gastra, would increase the credit rating of the Danish power transmission sector, according to a...

Addressing the issue.(utility data)
November 5, 2004... Accurate address information is the cornerstone of utility data . Phil Muller says clean it up and use it well to deliver customer satisfaction. Utilities find it a challenge to service their customers efficiently, understand and predict...

ENERGY; Foreign Office admits political instability is risk to supply.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... The government has admitted that the security of the UK's energy supply will increasingly be dependent on countries with 'significant potential risk of internal instability'. That is the considered view of a report produced by the Foreign...

ELECTRICITY; Generators count cost of tighter carbon cap.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Roger Milne UK generators were this week counting the cost of the government's revised allocation plan for Europe-wide emissions trading which, the sector fears, has left operators significantly less room for manoeuvre than expected....

ENERGY; Government tries to keep Elsam in Danish hands.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Danish finance minister Thor Pedersen has intervened in the battle for ownership of independent utility Elsam, against a backdrop of shareholder support for a takeover by Sweden's Vattenfall. Pedersen said he would seek to engage Danish gas...

Love story.(customer loyalty)
November 5, 2004... It isn't easy being loyal today. The complexity and competitiveness of the modern world means that there is an unprecedented quantity of offerings out there. Whether it's loyalty to employers, shops, brands or to the organisations that compete...

ELECTRICITY ; EnBW leaves Austria over high grid fees.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... German energy company Energie Baden-Wurttemberg (EnBW) has quit the Austrian power market after complaining about the country's high grid fees. A spokesman for EnBW Austria said Austria's grid fees 'made it impossible to operate...

MULTI-UTILITY ; Endesa unveils e15bn spend plans.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Spanish power group Endesa plans to invest [pounds sterling]14.6 billion over the next five years with almost three-quarters of the money being spent on assets in Spain and Portugal. Nearly 71 per cent of the earmarked investment will go...

ENERGY; Npower to trial long-term contracts.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Npower plans to be the first of the major energy suppliers to offer long-term energy supply contracts, taking advantage of the trial relaxation of the rule forbidding deals that tie in customers beyond 28 days. The supplier is proposing a...

Liberal attitudes.(market liberalisation)
November 5, 2004... About half the domestic electricity consumers in Europe can now choose their supplier. Many utilities all over the Continent have been preparing for this for a long time - others are playing catch up. Consultants and industry observers have...

More power for the Queen.(Column)
November 5, 2004... How good to know that the head of state (the Queen, not Tony) is green. Not just in the sense that she wears wellies and Barbour of that hue but she forces Prince Philip to turn off his PC and not leave it on standby. And spends hours...

eNERGY; Tax breaks could cut carbon, says report.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Roger Milne Research has backed industry calls for changes to stamp duty and council tax to reward owners of energy-efficient homes. A recent study has found that such fiscal incentives could cut carbon emissions by 10 per cent and save...

TELECOMS; FT fights falls in fixed-line revenues.(France Telecom)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Incumbent telecoms operator France Telecom increased revenues for the third quarter despite a decline in fixed-line sales. Revenues for the group reached e12.05 billion, up 3.5 per cent on the same quarter in 2003 and slightly ahead of...

WATER; Berlin Senate startstalks over BWI bids.(RWE)(BGW)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Zoe Grainge German regional authority the Berlin Senate has begun negotiations with two potential bidders for BWI, the international arm of city water supplier Berlinwasser. 'Talks are under way with serious bidders,' confirmed BWI...

Possible power link with cancer.(high voltage lines)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Children living near high-voltage power lines could be twice as likely to develop cancer as those who do not, according to the results of a seven-year study. As The Times reported, research by Oxford University's Childhood Cancer Research Group...

When words fail you.(Energy Saving Trust)(Column)
November 5, 2004... Churn is one of those lovely archaic words that make for fantastic modern euphemisms. Rather than concentrating the mind on the nasty business in hand, it summons up thoughts of a bygone era filled with milkmaids and mellow fruitfulness. ...

ELECTRICITY; Ofgem clashes with City over wires.(Corporation of London)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... The Corporation of London has blasted Ofgem's proposed capital expenditure limits for the City's power distributor as 'a dim idea', accusing the watchdog of failing to allow for necessary improvements in the resilience of EDF Energy's network,...

Divided loyalty.(loyalty cards)
November 5, 2004... Around six out of ten consumers carry at least one of the millions of loyalty cards issued by retailers and financial services providers since Tesco launched the UK's first loyalty scheme, the Clubcard, in 1995. Loyalty cards are more...

ELECTRICITY; Network split backed by German regulator.(RegTP)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Simon Jones German energy regulator-in-waiting Matthias Kurth has backed government proposals for the legal separation of power companies' generation and grid operations. Last week, Kurth said the move, which need not imply any...

UK carbon trade revisions.
November 5, 2004... The British government has come under fire from many quarters over its proposals to amend its National Allocation Plan (NAP) for the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Last week ministers proposed increasing the number of UK...

WATER; Water efficiency requires government intervention.(United Kingdom Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee member Alan Simpson MP has called on the government to be more interventionist to promote water efficiency. He said the promotion of energy efficiency was allied to the government's objective...

ELECTRICITY; Brussels rejects [pounds sterling]30m subsidy proposal for Ulster customers.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Northern Ireland ministers have been forced back to the drawing board over plans to provide a special subsidy to cushion the high power prices facing business customers in the province. The government had earlier marked a sum of [pounds...

TELECOMS; Churn thwarts Orange's blossoming.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... France Telecom-owned mobile telecoms company Orange last week posted headline figures showing a significant increase in customer churn despite higher customer additions. Results for the third quarter and nine months of the year showed an...

Chief's role crucial to succession planning.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Zoe Grainge The importance of a chief executive's personal involvement in leadership succession planning was underlined last week by a survey that showed strong demand from senior staff across industries for top-down initiatives to...

Sick leave guidance aims to bring absentees back.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued a guide for employers and managers for dealing with sickness and absence. Long-term sickness absence, defined as four weeks or more, is a burden to employers as absence can lead to mounting...

Severn Trent wins at health and safety.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Engineers at Severn Trent Water have won a prestigious health and safety award from the British Safety Council, one of the world's leading independent workplace safety bodies. The engineering team, based at Shelton in Shrewsbury, achieved a...

WATER; High-debt firms take top spots on performance.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Anglian Water was the best performing water and sewerage company in 2003/4, according to Ofwat's latest figures. Welsh Water was in second place with South West Water bottom in the overall performance assessment (OPA) - an assessment of...

Ministers defend; carbon increases.
November 5, 2004... Ministers got it in the neck last week from opposition parties and environmentalists after the administration's announcement that it planned to increase emissions allowances under the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The...

WATER; Ofwat supports Thames in row over towers.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Ofwat has taken Thames Water's side in the water supplier's wrangle with local authorities over who should fund necessary pressure improvements. As part of its action to cut the amount of water lost from its network, Thames intends to cut...

GAS; Reshuffle sparks merger rumours.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Spanish-Argentine oil giant Repsol-YPF and Spanish gas company Gas Natural could be on the brink of merging after a management reshuffle in which Repsol ousted its chairman. Antonio Brufau was named as Repsol's new chairman, replacing...

GAS; Brussels rules to end territory restrictions.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Trevor Dooley The European Commission has ruled that territorial restriction clauses in gas contracts breach European competition law. Clauses that restrict activity in specified areas have been condemned by the Commission for slowing...

Swimming in data.(Customer Data Integration)
November 5, 2004... One thing that utility companies do not suffer from is a shortage of data. With millions of customer records, they have a volume of customer information that other industries would give their right arm for. However, in many cases it seems that...

WATER; South Staffs premium will not be repeated.(AquaInvest)(Merrill Lynch)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... by Karma Ockenden Despite water stock buoyancy on the back of a gold-plated acquisition of South Staffordshire, investment bank Merrill Lynch counselled that a buy out on such generous terms was unlikely to be repeated elsewhere in the...

ELECTRICITY; Spain's firms want rejig of compensation.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Spain's power utilities have asked the government to pay e614 million in deficits stemming from a faulty system to compensate them for regulated power distribution activities. Endesa, Iberdrola and Union Fenosa said that the system did not pay...

ELECTRICITY; Spanish power firms plead for tariff change.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Spain's power industry has asked the government to raise electricity tariffs by 6 per cent to account for higher oil costs and efforts to comply with the new national carbon dioxide emissions plan. The request would break through the 2 per...

ELECTRICITY; New standards for restoration of power lines.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Energy regulator Ofgem has proposed new standards for restoring supply following damage in severe conditions, in a bid to encourage distributors to speed up reconnections and to streamline compensation arrangements. The system comprises...

Switch pitch.
November 5, 2004... With record price rises for both gas and electricity being announced recently - most notably by British Gas, which unveiled rises of 12.4 per cent for gas and 9.4 per cent for electricity - is it really any wonder that hundreds of thousands of...

Vicious to virtuous.
November 5, 2004... The way utilities introduce new services can all too often result in a vicious circle that reduces the likelihood that these new services will be taken up. It works like this. The introduction of new services puts more pressure on the call...

TELECOMS; O'Brien set to turn up EU telecoms heat.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... E-Commerce minister Mike O'Brien is set to press for further implementation of telecoms rules across the European Union after the UK takes up the presidency of the EU next July. O'Brien said he wanted an 'acceleration in the process of...

WATER; Thames takes Iberdrola minorities.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... RWE's Thames Water last week bought the 25 per cent stakes it did not already own in two Spanish water companies from Iberdrola for e31.5 million. In September 2002, RWE bought 75 per cent of Pridesa and Ondagua for e94.5 million through...

energy; Supplier satisfaction slips as rising prices bite.(Eon UK )(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Eon UK and Scottish energy duo ScottishPower and Scottish and Southern Energy topped a table of customer satisfaction this week but overall contentment declined, with rising prices cited as the chief cause. The findings by marketing...

WATER; United sues suppliers in defect row.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... United Utilities Water has launched a [pounds sterling]50 million legal battle over what it claims was the defective design of a wastewater treatment plant in Liverpool. United complained that local residents were threatening to sue for...

WATER; Little more help for the poor.
November 5, 2004... by Karma Ockenden Those hoping for the government's review of water affordability to bale out customers who struggle to pay their water bills faced disappointment last week. Giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs'...

ENERGY; Eon signs domestic generator deal.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Eon UK retail arm Powergen has signed a deal with housebuilder Lovell to install 550 domestic scale combined heat and power (microcogen) generators in Manchester. The deal is part of an affordable housing development in Beswick in which...

ONE.(Interview)
November 5, 2004... minute interview Name Liz Gimmler Age 40 Company WRc plc (Water Research Centre) Job title Business development manager with WRc managing the collaborative portfolio research programme for the water...

TELECOMS; France to cut mobile network fees by 36%.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... French telecoms regulator ART is set to impose a cut in mobile termination rates of 36 per cent over two years. The regulator identified Orange France, SFR and Bouygues Telecom as having significant market power in the mobile market and...

WATER; Rain pollutes beach figures.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Only bathing waters in the Thames and Anglian regions matched Wales' record of 100 per cent compliance with mandatory standards in the latest figures from the Environment Agency. UK coastal waters as a whole achieved 97.7 per cent...

TELECOMS; C&W poised to unveil job cuts and shake up.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Corporate telecoms provider Cable & Wireless was set to announce job cuts and a management shake-up with its interim results this week. Chief executive Francesco Caio was thought to be about to take a tighter hold of the day-to-day running...

TELECOMS; Cable pair inches nearer to long-awaited merger.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... The prospect of a merger between cable companies Telewest and NTL moved closer as Telewest was reported to be involved in talks with investment banks to advise on a deal. The reports came as NTL released interim results showing revenue...

eNVIRONMENT; Forward carbon trade fixes abatement price.
November 12, 2004... by Roger Milne Oil and gas major Shell and a large European corporation have concluded a milestone carbon trading deal, claimed to be the first for the later stages of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The settlement,...

ENVIRONMENT; Gaffe smears plant emission record.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... An error by the Environment Agency when it gave data on power plant emissions to the European Commission led to West Burton power station being singled out incorrectly as the worst pollutant emitter in Europe, despite it being one of the few...

ENVIRONMENT; Climate change needs action not words.
November 12, 2004... by Roger Milne Parliament this week put the government on notice that it must match ministerial rhetoric on climate change with action. The rallying call came from a House of Lords committee which wants to make sure that Britain uses...

WATER; Ofwat treads on green regulator's toes.(Office of Water Services)
November 12, 2004... by Karma Ockenden The Environment Agency has accused water regulator Ofwat of exceeding its authority by leaving statutory green schemes out of its draft capital programme for the water industry for 2005-10. The green watchdog told the...

PAN-UTILITY; Roadwork cost-reduction studies get [pounds sterling]1m in grants.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... A government research funding body has awarded [pounds sterling]1 million in grants for studies aimed at cutting the cost of utility roadworks. The funding will back six closely linked projects, including: a database showing the location...

TELECOMS; Network investment under threat, says BT.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... by Zoe Grainge The future of BT's 21st century fibre optic network could be in doubt if the company is not freed from regulation at the local loop level, according to BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland. Sir Christopher's comments, made...

ENERGY; Ministers launch energy crop plan.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... The government has launched a major drive for greater use of crops as a source of energy. The importance of energy crops was highlighted in a joint strategy drawn up by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for...

eNERGY; Supply theft poses problem for industry.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Network operators should not be held liable for all apparent energy losses because of the impossibility of attributing them either to technical reasons or theft, a conference on revenue protection heard last week. The issue of energy...

GAS; Code proposal could boost competition.(Energywatch)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Competition and transparency could get a boost according to the authors of a ground-breaking proposed modification to the industry's Network Code, recently drawn up and published by consumer interests. The modification, formulated by...

energy; Eon seals e2.1bn deal for Hungarian assets.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... by Zoe Grainge German energy giant Eon has bought most of the gas assets of Hungary's upstream energy company MOL in a move valued at e2.1 billion. The deal marks Eon's third acquisition in two months in eastern Europe. The company...

Behind you.
November 12, 2004... European emissions trading will start in just seven weeks, but few firms are prepared . Michael Cupit says laggards are missing an opportunity. Earlier this year, Ernst & Young conducted a European survey to assess attitudes to, and...

Taxing times for David Varney.
November 12, 2004... Spare a thought for mmO2's one-time chairman David Varney, the man whose former incarnations included a spell as chief executive of BG Group (once British Gas) and Shell. He has been one of the great and the good as well, serving on government...

ENERGY; Fortum near to bagging Polish heat operation.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Finnish power group Fortum has signed a conditonal agreement to buy 85 per cent of Polish district heating company PESC. PESCsupplies heat for the city of Czestochowa and five smaller towns. Its turnover last year was about e22 million with...

GAS; Natural/Repsol asset swap off the agenda.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Spain's Gas Natural does not intend to swap assets or merge with oil group Repsol-YPF, Repsol's new chairman Antonio Brufau said last week. The announcement countered reports that the companies would exchange natural gas assets to boost...

Game over?
November 12, 2004... Energy regulator Ofgem recently published its analysis and conclusions on the causes of the very high wholesale gas prices over the past year and for the coming winter. The probe was extensive in nature, as it had to satisfy Ofgem's primary...

ENERGY; Germany to tighten grid fee control.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... The German Cabinet is to alter the proposed energy law to tighten price controls and extend the powers of regulator RegTP. A key change was to make rises in grid fees subject to pre-approval. Such ex-ante regulation - resisted until now by...

International Power.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... The lights may have dimmed slightly for International Power (IP) in the US, but there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel on this side of the Atlantic, according to reports in the weekend press. The company's third-quarter profits fell...

ELECTRICITY; International Power left bruised by US downturn.(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Poor margins in the US have dogged generator International Power at the third quarter stage. The company's US business made a loss of [pounds sterling]1 million after a [pounds sterling]13 million profit at the same stage last year,...

ELECTRICITY; Irish regulator warns of cuts.(Commission for Energy Regulation)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... Ireland's energy regulator has warned of power shortages arising from the country's allocations of carbon dioxide emission allowances. The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) has criticised Ireland's environment watchdog for creating...

Tilting at windmills.
November 12, 2004... There's an eerie whine abroad in the countryside. It is not, as many would have us believe, the sound of wind turbines. Rather it is the sound of a thousand Not In My Back Yardies moaning about the building of windfarms. In perhaps one of...

Customers back meters-for-all policy.(WaterVoice and universal metering)(Brief Article)
November 12, 2004... WaterVoice has come out in favour of universal metering. Launching a new policy statement, the customer body said meters were the best way to cut consumption and improve water management. In the short to medium term, establishing universal...

Energy storage makes waves.(electrical energy)
November 12, 2004... Electrical energy storage is taking centre stage for power network applications as the likelihood of more distributed generation and increasing amounts of renewable power pose major questions in terms of intermittency. Various technologies...

Scottish and Southern Energy.
November 12, 2004... by Trevor Dooley Having let a [pounds sterling]1.1 billion acquisition go to a rival who bid [pounds sterling]60 million more, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has spent much of this year on a spending spree. It lost that race for...

ONE.(Siemens Energy Services)(Interview)
November 12, 2004... minute interview Name Garry Matthews Age 51 Company Siemens Energy Services, independent provider of metering services Job title Gas meter operations manager, responsible for meter installation...

Brink of change?
November 12, 2004... This year is shaping up to be one of the most significant in the history of UK telecoms. First, this month it is two decades since the UK became Europe's first liberalised, competitive telecommunications marketplace. In November 1984, shares in...

Top marks for change.
November 12, 2004... It is a truth universally acknowledged that building or changing a culture in an organisation does not happen overnight. Altering the structure of an organisation is comparatively quick compared with the lengthy process of winning hearts and...

Energy prices pose a problem.
November 12, 2004... The prime minister has been left in no doubt that his opponents expect him to deliver something tangible on the climate change front now that his wartime ally is back in harness in the White House. Those expectations will be highlighted...