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Insight
Conclusions
Conclusions
By Charlotte Glass and Matt Rouse, Gentrack
As water scarcity in the UK intensifies, water companies are committed to securing a reliable supply for future generations. A combination of unpredictable weather patterns and increasing population, as well as aging infrastructure, presents a critical challenge.
Water companies must fund their activities responsibly, but also boldly, ensuring that a reasonably sized proportion of their investment goes directly into innovative solutions for securing water supply, enabling customers to take more control of their water usage and modernising their customer technology to provide service excellence.
The future will be different when it comes to tariffs from the relatively homogenous story to date. Water will become more like the energy market, with increased engagement with customers and a focus on new technologies and flexible usage patterns, enabled by smart meters and the Internet of Things, among other systems.
Recognising that price increases impact all households, especially during periods of economic uncertainty, water companies have increased efforts to implement more measures and support to protect vulnerable customers. This includes schemes for those on lower incomes to help manage costs while still benefiting from improved infrastructure.
This type of positive partnership between water companies and customers can help secure a sustainable future by working together to conserve water and continuing to modernise the sector in a mutually respectful, economically viable and cyclical way.
Customers will play an active role in conserving water by making small changes to daily habits. Simple actions like fixing dripping taps, turning the tap off when brushing teeth and being mindful of water use during peak times have a real impact.
This temporary reduction in demand could provide a much-needed reprieve to enable the sector to get to where it needs to be, instead of investing a lot of money and effort to effectively just stand still.
There is no denying that the combination of water scarcity, population growth, affordability issues and the need to invest heavily in infrastructure means the landscape for water is uniquely challenging.
The time is now right for us to work together to address these challenges head on.
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Lessons from other nations?
The water companies Utility Week talks to, who often complain of feeling under siege from the media and public, may be comforted to know some of their counterparts overseas face similar issues. In the EU, for example, almost a third of groundwater is polluted, while in Paris the contamination of the Seine is notorious.
There are problems in Oceania, too. Auckland’s aging stormwater system sometimes fails and mixes stormwater with raw sewage when the city is flooded, and in Wellington, the city’s 100-year-old water pipe infrastructure is subject to bursts and spills of sewage that shut down beaches.
Just like in the UK, there’s a lot of political wrangling and controversy about the future of the water industry and public concern about pollution in Australia and New Zealand, along with a dawning realisation that revitalising infrastructure will cost billions. New Zealand is also a wet country, which means there’s sometimes pushback against water-saving campaigns.
That’s not the case in Australia, where water scarcity and drought are a fact of life. “Water companies in Australia are focusing on rewarding the right behaviour, instead of penalising bad behaviour,” says Matt Rouse of Gentrack. “They haven’t cracked how to do it, but the concept resonates with them.”
Australia has a similar level of smart meter penetration to the UK, he adds. “There have been some very positive use cases. Unity Water has seen large reductions in water consumption thanks to the adoption of smart meters.”
