Brexit hasn’t affected investment, says UK Power Networks boss

  The UK’s decision to leave the EU has not had a negative impact on the investment decisions made by UK Power Networks. CEO Basil Scarsella told ELN investors see […]

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The UK’s decision to leave the EU has not had a negative impact on the investment decisions made by UK Power Networks.

CEO Basil Scarsella told ELN investors see the UK market as having the “best” regulatory regime.

UK Power Networks is a distribution network operator for electricity covering South East England, the East of England and London.

Mr Scarsella said: “Our investors, our owners of UK Power Networks, invest in some 54 countries around the world. They see the UK market, from a regulator perspective, as having the best in class regulatory regime. It’s consistent, it’s predictable, it’s independent. That’s what you want. Brexit hasn’t changed that.

“In some ways, it’s probably made it even better because we’ve got control of that but overall our investment will be available but it’s more important the regulatory regime stays as it has. It needs to evolve obviously to cater for the changes but importantly, it needs to be predictable, consistent and independent.”

Mr Scarsella added the company is “just getting on with it” following the Brexit decision and embracing the changes.

He believes two of the biggest problems that will have a negative impact on the economy is the “negative talk and loss of confidence”.

Talking about a two-way grid at the Energy Live 2016 conference, he said: “There are challenges and opportunities because there are a lot of new connections, new generation that are connected to our distribution network. The changes that are taking place will impact the distribution network because they are local and decentralised rather than centralised. That creates opportunities for the distribution networks, the move from a DNO [Distribution Network Operator] to a system operator to a DSO [Distribution System Operator].

“That is all about modernising the grid, making sure that customers can sell as well as buy electricity from the grid and allowing consumers to actually have control of their energy usage and in some cases their energy generation. So it creates opportunities and the distribution networks will be dramatically different in 10, 15, 20 years to what they are today. They’ll be different, they’ll be new but the opportunities are there for all of us.”

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