On the Move: Michael Lewis to join UU

In our latest roundup of industry appointments, the head of Eon is set to join United Utilities’ board, Trevor Bishop will step down from WRSE and the Energy Networks Association names a new director.

United Utilities

Michael Lewis, chief executive of Eon UK, will join United Utilities as a non-executive director from 1 May.

Lewis, who has led Eon since 2017 and spent more than 28 years working in energy, will sit on the nomination and corporate responsibility committees.

United Utilities chair David Higgins said Lewis’ regulatory experience will be a “great benefit” to board discussions for PR24 business planning . “Michael has led on the transformation and response to the challenges in the UK energy market and on the impacts of climate change. His focus on sustainability throughout his career will help the United Utilities’ board further develop its ambitions to reduce the group’s carbon footprint and achieve its net zero commitment by 2030.”

ENA

The Energy Networks Association (ENA) has welcomed David Boyer as director of electricity at the  trade body. Boyer, who began his career at Electricity North West, has spent 13 years working in energy innovation, most recently at Accenture. He will lead the ENA’s work around electricity systems, making the energy grid smarter and more flexible. Boyer said he is keenly interested in the challenges posed by the energy transition. He said: “There’s a range of important focus areas that are best progressed jointly as an industry that I look forward to working on, including connecting low carbon technologies, the digitalisation of network services and  establishing more active and flexible networks at scale.”

Water Resources South East

Trevor Bishop, who has been director of Water Resources South East (WRSE) since 2019, will step down from the regional resource management group after three years. Lee Dance, head of water resources at South East Water will become the WRSE operational director from 1 April.

Bishop said developing the sector’s first regional resources plans had been a privilege to be a part of and cited the “genuine partnership working” between stakeholders as a positive note. “Our member water companies and regulators have given us the opportunity to think and act differently, and explore new and better ways of working,” Bishop said. He added that after three years he feels ready to move on to other projects.

Kaluza

The energy software platform has named David Espley as its new chief technology officer to oversee the development of a new platform. Espley will join next month from Hargreaves Lansdown, bringing 25 years’ enterprise software experience including fintech, artificial intelligence and flexible architecture. He said he is excited to join the company on its journey to decarbonise energy.

He replaces Ed Conolly who left Kaluza in November to join IT management company Cloudflare.

Smart Energy Code Company

Angela Love has been announced as the incoming Smart Energy Code panel and board chair, taking over from Peter Davies who is standing down in March after nine years.

Love has spent more than 30 years in the energy sector and was most recently director future markets and engagement at Elexon, where she was responsible for strategy, external affairs, communications, stakeholder engagement and the Design Authority.

She was also executive sponsor for the £90 million industry market-wide half hourly settlement programme, reporting directly to the Elexon board.

She has been a panel member of the Ofgem stakeholder engagement and vulnerable customer panel for five years and is the independent chair of SP Energy Networks’ independent net zero advisory council.

Commenting on her appointment, Love said: “At a time when Ofgem is considering the code and DCC arrangements and themselves evolving to become the energy market strategic body, it is a really exciting time to be leading one of the key codes within the energy sector.

“The challenges facing the sector are many and varied, but I am sure that working with the SEC panel, SEC parties, DCC, BEIS, Ofgem and other stakeholders we can proactively address them together.”