Utility Week

12 | 13TH - 19TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Utility of the Future: climate change Water resilience "UKWIR has set out the goal for the sector to achieve zero leakage by 2050 in an effort to drive innovation." STEVE KAYE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, UKWIR "The challenge is going to be making sure that the regulatory cycle takes into account the need to plan investment over the long term rather than focus on a very narrow fi ve-year period." PHILIP GRAHAM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, NIC record on stemming leaks; and that more needs to be done to support the long-term planning and investment needed to deliver major infrastructure projects such as reservoirs. Trevor Bishop, organisational development director at Water Resources South East (WRSE), one of • ve regional groups set up to deliver more resilient water supplies, says: "The NIC has set out an incredibly bold agenda – signi• cant reductions in leakage and per capita consumption combined with a major infrastructure programme for hard, so… and green infrastructure. "Government, regulators, companies and other stakeholders are starting to work much more col- laboratively with a common cause, but many barri- ers – both policy and cultural – still exist and there is much more to be done, particularly around trust and leadership." The new normal Weather in the UK is becoming more extreme, severe storms and ‹ ash ‹ ooding have occurred in the North West and Lincolnshire, 2018 saw an extended summer drought, and when the mercury hit 38.7C on 25 July this year in Cambridge it was the highest temperature ever recorded. The need to bolster resilience in the water supply runs in tandem with goals, set out in the Paris Agreement, to keep global temperature rise well below 2C above pre- industrial levels and the UK government target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The NIC report endorses a "twin-track" approach of reducing demand and increasing sup- ply, as the cheapest and most sustainable method of reinforcing the network. It stipulates a minimum 1,300Ml/day of additional supply infrastructure, which could include water transfers, reservoirs, re- use and desalination plants. Philip Graham, chief executive of the NIC tells Utility Week: "We are unable to reach a • rm view [of the preferred infrastructure options] until more work has been done, but the indicative view is that transfers alone are unlikely to provide a full solution to the problem. We have been encouraging water companies to think about what level of reservoir capacity might be needed alongside that, or potentially other proposals such as desalination plants, although these tend to be very expensive." In its latest Water Resource Management Plan, Thames Water updated proposals to build a new reservoir in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in partner- ship with A¢ nity Water, which if approved could begin construction in 2025. Portsmouth Water is championing the construction of a new reservoir in Havant Thicket, East Hampshire, targeted for delivery in 2029. However, building new reservoirs in the UK is notoriously di¢ cult because of planning and legal hurdles and o… en • erce local opposition to schemes. Companies are familiar with planning on a 25-year horizon, but this can come into con‹ ict with the traditional • ve-year regulatory investment cycle. As part of work to develop a more responsive regulatory approach, the Environment Agency recently committed to work with Ofwat to estab- lish the Regulators' Alliance for Progressing Infra- structure Development (Rapid). This would aim to ensure that barriers to strategic developments were identi• ed and removed, such as the funding of shared strategic schemes. Graham comments: "The industry is increas- ingly taking a long-term perspective in terms of how it plans. But the challenge is going to be making sure that the regulatory cycle takes into account the need to plan investment over the long term rather than focus on a very narrow • ve-year period. Ofwat is aware of that and making encour- aging noises when we talk to them. But the devil is in the detail." Supply concerns include the need to reduce lev- els of water abstraction. According to Environment Agency • gures, nearly 9,500 billion litres of fresh- water were abstracted in 2016, 55 per cent of which was used for public water supply. The agency has warned that even current levels of abstraction are unsustainable in more than a quarter of ground- water bodies and up to one-• … h of surface waters. UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) is now working to create a route map for how the sector can halve freshwater abstractions in a sustainable way by 2050. Joined-up thinking Strategic water transfers could provide about 700Ml/day additional capacity, the NIC states in its report, but at present just 4 per cent of supplies are transferred between individual water companies. The • ve regional water resources groups cov- ering England are currently exploring new stra- tegic schemes that may involve transfers, and by February next year each is required to submit a statement of their resource position and whether they will be a net receiver or donor of water. The groups will then work together and with regulators to develop strategic solutions. Trevor Bishop at WRSE comments: "WRSE is starting to develop what we believe will be an international • rst in terms of a multi-sector water resilience plan for the South East. This approach will start to build-in wider resilience issues, con- sistently and collaboratively across the region." Water stresses are normally considered most acute in the South East but new research, by inde- pendent research think-tank the Institute for Pub- lic Policy Research predicts that resources in the North of England will become scarcer than previ- ously thought over the next 25 years. It calls for a "pan-regional voice" for stakeholders in the water sector with water companies working together to • nd solutions. continued from previous page

• Cover