Chartered Engineer · Financial Modelling Specialist · Infrastructure Regulation Adviser
Background
Mike Woods is a Chartered Engineer with over twenty years of experience in infrastructure regulation, benchmarking, financial modelling and independent assurance. He has assured and reviewed major infrastructure and financial models for a wide range of clients across regulated sectors including gas, electricity, water, rail, roads and aviation.
Mike's energy sector experience includes advising the Commission for Regulation of Utilities on the regulatory framework for offshore transmission, and reviewing Ofgem's analytical tools for the economic assessment of long-duration energy storage projects. He has also worked on bill modelling in the water sector, developing approaches to estimate water poverty across the UK using a combination of public income and company billing data.
Before establishing Mike Woods Consulting Limited in 2009, Mike worked as a Technical Adviser to the Office of the PPP Arbiter and as a Consultant at PwC, where he led the scoping, specification and delivery of financial models for major public and private sector infrastructure contracts.
Track record
Advised Ofgem on the RAB regime for Sizewell C, reviewing the incentives and uncertainty mechanisms built into the licence through modelling and application of a cost of debt adjustment mechanism that encourages efficient financing behaviour by the licensee.
Advised the CRU on the regulatory framework for offshore transmission, developing and modelling the revenue building blocks necessary to allow a rapid increase in offshore assets to be financeable.
Advised Ofgem on the modelling of asset lives and depreciation and its impact on costs and cost recovery under the RIIO-3 price control, modelling the age profile of assets and their likely service lives as the asset base transitions toward net-zero.
Advised Ofgem on the development of regulatory financial models for carbon capture, usage and storage in the UK, ensuring licence conditions were properly integrated and that regulatory asset values, depreciation and returns were accurately represented.
Reviewed two models used to allocate infrastructure costs to Train Operating Companies, examining the modelling of timetable changes due to infrastructure works and the unavoidable costs associated with maintaining a network.
Advised the CRU on the modelling of performance targets and changes to regulated revenue streams for Ireland's gas and electricity markets, ensuring that modelling was robust and consistent with regulatory approaches and good practices.
Reviewed the price control model used by the regulator to set regulated charges for Heathrow Airport, ensuring that regulatory policies were correctly implemented and that calculations of financing costs, credit ratings and taxation were properly included.
Advised Water UK on modelling water poverty in England and Wales, developing a common approach with the UK's water companies. Developed proof-of-concept models that were used to estimate levels of water poverty across the UK, with results informing potential approaches to addressing the issue.
Qualifications
Career history