Ms Maria Graham:

In response to the question Deputy Jan O’Sullivan asked about excessive use in cases where there is metering or non-metering, on a general point, in most jurisdictions regulators deal with both metered and unmetered charges as a norm in terms of how one assesses charging regimes, if there is charging, for those who do not have meters as a proxy. In any system that would have an excessive use charge, one would be looking at other ways for the non-metered people to identify excessive usage within that cohort. There is obviously quite rich data around consumption and consumption patterns from the metered use. There is the overlay that it can go with district meter areas to look at areas that have high volumes of usage that might suggest there seems to be excessive use in that, but it is more generalised than at a household level. It depends on whether one is looking at cost-effective metering in the longer term and increasing the pool of people who are metered for that purpose or new builds that are metered. It depends on a number of approaches that one might take that might increase the information in that regard. This is something that sometimes can be resolved through the regulatory process. Following consultation with people, while it might not be perfect, one can come to some arrangement that people feel are a close proxy.