The past few years have been highly active for the UK’s Utilities… water companies have strived to meet and beat Ofwat’s tough efficiency targets, the gas industry has been restructured following the sale of four distribution networks by National Grid, and the rising cost of energy is continuing to present the sector with further challenges.
The water sector price review was tough but there were no appeals, and the big challenge now is delivering the opex savings and allocating capex in the most efficient manner. The consultation on the review indicates that any changes will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Looking further ahead, the new Water Services Regulation Authority that replaced Ofwat earlier this year is likely set even tougher targets in 2009.
Turning to the electricity network operators, the Ofgem price review was also accepted by the industry and the companies are now focused on delivering the capital investment that is badly needed in the asset base. Some innovative and radical solutions are required to support the agreed enhanced rate of investment in replacing the physical infrastructure. Network security and availability are at risk of criminal and terrorist activity, while accommodating renewable and distributed generation is also a challenge.
Over the past year, we have been working closely with our Electricity and Gas industry customers to ensure a very clear strategy on how they use their data to support their business in driving improvement in; Service to the end user, Smarter Investment planning and Increased operational efficiency.
To achieve this, we have provided a wide range of solutions to improve data accuracy, enable mobile working and improve Asset and Work management practices. These services have been implemented within a number of major organisations such as National Grid, EDF Energy, and United Utilities.
Our energy retail portfolio has continued to grow with new or extension orders from a customer list including Centrica, EDF, ESB, Npower, Powergen and Scottish Power.
Our Information Management consultants have enabled these businesses to improve their data management, improve their business intelligence, obtain visibility and control of their industry data flows and to develop strategic programmes for managing their data.
At Centrica the implementation of our Data Transfer System (DTS) handles approximately one million data transfers a day; giving our customer visibility and control over their customer churn process. The result has been better customer service, whilst reducing cost to serve the customer. Today Centrica has over 1,000 registered users of our DTS solution
We have continued to build on our partnerships with Anglian Water, Scottish Water, South West Water, Southern Water and Veolia Water Systems.
At South West Water, our work includes the provision of our Consulting Services and delivery of our Investment Optimisation solution. Our solutions will support the significant business change required to deliver the financial efficiencies, and improved levels of customer service required in the next regulatory period.
Energy retailers will continue to come under pressure as prices rises push more households into fuel poverty. This is the first time since the introduction of the competitive market that we have seen big price rises. These are having a bigger impact on poorer and vulnerable households and the government needs to work with the Energy Retailers Association to find ways of lessening the impact.
The creation of four new independent gas network operators will make the next price review a lot more interesting, as for the first time the regulator will be able to use comparators to set efficiency targets for the operators. In the meantime the key issue will be bedding down the new operations and ensuring they meet safety standards.
Utilities Solutions 