2.7.2 Consultation and Review 2021-2022

The 2022 Consultation 

The 2022 TICCS® market consultation took place between June 2021 and January 2022. The objectives of the consultations were

1. whether each TICCS pillar serves a clear purpose

2. whether there are categories under each pillar that should be added, revised or removed

3. whether any other pillars should be considered

4. how TICCS is useful to their organisation

32 responses were provided, mostly by asset owners and managers but also consultants and banks.

78% of respondents considered TICCS® 2020 to be appropriate, with no changes required. The remaining 22% of respondents had comments or required clarifications about the classification. These comments and suggestions were then passed to the TICCS® Review Committee for their consideration and expert opinion.

(You can download the 2022 Consultation Results here.)  

The rest of this document includes the key April 2022 recommendations of the Review Committee and a discussion of most of the suggested changes or clarifications. Note that a number of suggestions were aggregated, and a few were excluded because they were not considered relevant.

Recommendations of the Review Committee (April 2022)

2022 CONSULTATION TICCS® 2022√

2021-2022 Consultation & Review

The vast majority of respondents were happy with TICCS® and found it clear and useful. Most of the comments in the consultation report were granular, focusing on specific points of specific classifications, especially within the industrial pillar.

Pillar one (Business Risk)

• 86% of respondents to the 2022 TICCS® consultation considered this pillar to service a clear purpose.

• The committee argued that there is a need to provide clarity and guideline on how we classify partially contracted/merchant assets using thresholds (e.g. X% over the asset life), including how it is determined for the EDEC indices. TICCS is the type of taxonomy that defines classes but not how they should be weighted. However, threshold can be found in the Implementation Guidelines.

Pillar two (Industrial Activity)

• Proportion of respondents to the 2022 TICCS® consultation who answered that the following Industrial Activity Super-classes served a clear purpose.

  • 86% IC10 – Power

  • 71% IC20 – Environmental Services

  • 86% IC30 – Social Infrastructure

  • 57% IC40 – Energy and Water Resources

  • 71% IC50 – Data

  • 71% IC60 – Transport

  • 57% IC70 – Renewables

  • 71% IC80 – Network Utilities

Definition for each subclass level asset was recommended by the Review Committee. 

Similar to the last consultation, it was suggested that certain activities be re-organised within their own water super-class. EDHECinfra considered this option but concluded that the current distinction between ‘network’ businesses (including Water Utilities) and standalone assets (e.g. Water treatment plants) is warranted and reflects the fundamental economic mechanisms at play in infrastructure.

Suggested new Asset Subclasses were considered by the Review Committee and also the fundamental economic criteria described above.

• To be newly included

  • Bioethanol Fuel (IC402040) under Energy Resource Processing Companies (IC4020)

  • Cell Towers (IC501010) and Radio and Media Towers (IC501040) under Data Transmission (IC5010)

  • Thermal Storage (IC705030) under Other Renewable Technologies (IC7050)

  • Hydrogen-fired power generation (IC706010), Hydrogen Fuel Cells (IC706020) and Hydrogen storage (IC706030)

  • Smart Metering Companies (IC8070) and Smart Metering Network (IC807010)

• Suggestions not to be included

  • Carbon management and storage assets

  • Industrial Gasses

  • Land Registries

  • Inland freight water transport

  • Inland passenger water transport

  • Sea and coastal freight water transport

  • Coastal passenger water transport

  • Aircraft leasing

  • Cold storage and logistics

  • Warehouse

  • Intermodal and transport hub/depot

  • Motorway service stations  

  • Composting of bio-waste

  • Landfill gas capture and utilitisation

• Suggestions that were already covered in TICCS® 2020

  • Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP)

  • Anaerobic digestion of bio-waste

Pillar three (Geo-Economic)

• 86% of the consultation respondents found the third TICCS® pillar to serve a clear purpose

• A minor update was made to the Geoeconomic Pillar definition with more examples to provide better clarity in response to the recommendations by the Review Committee, 

Pillar four (Corporate Structure)

• 86% of the consultation respondents found the third TICCS® pillar to serve a clear purpose

• Title of the pillar has updated to "corporate structure" to provide a clear idea of how project financed asset is being differentiated from those assets that are not.