Utility Week

12 | JULY 2021 | UTILITY WEEK Interview He adds it's important to be honest about where the company is and measuring pro- gress in line with the old adage of "you can't manage what you can't measure". "We've got a huge focus on innovation, which was recognised in our PR19 business plan – it's not just about ideas but how we went about it and made it work. We've brought people in from outside who have experience from other sectors that are more proactive than reactive, bringing under- standing about what robotics and machine intelligence can do for us." Preventing fires with AI Bringing all that together means the company is on the route to being a digital utility, making the most of swathes of available information. Mogford explains that the digital transformation is about transitioning from what is largely a reactive to a proactive environment. "We've been on this journey since I joined 10 years ago," he says. "When I came into the sector I realised how reactive we are – we're fantastic firefighters but it's so much easier when there isn't a fire – we can stamp out the embers." This involved understanding the "patterns of life" and consumption habits within the water environment. The company has installed sensors and intelligent net- works to recognise when that pattern of life changes. Mogford says the proactive approach means the company can get to bursts and leaks earlier because the teams see them developing. "We're investing £100 million to do the same in our wastewater network. The clever part – that's not being done anywhere else – is we're applying machine intelligence to learn how those systems behave and spot when they don't behave as they should. This will deliver a plethora of benefits." The transformation extends to customers and trans- actions. One third of customers now pay their water bill digitally, and Mogford says users of the UU app rose by around 74 per cent last year. "We're using all the modern tools and techniques available to be digital across the board." The social tariff Improved access for billpayers to communicate with their water company was one of several recommenda- tions made in CCW's affordability review, along with calls for a single nationwide social tariff. Mogford says he and the team are really supportive of the single social tariff to do away with the postcode lottery that relies on the willingness to pay by other con- sumers in the region. This disparity means customers don't get as much help as other parts of the country. "It will need government support and endorsement to make it a successful scheme," he says. "We've put £71 million of shareholder funds into helping and sup- porting customers, which is where companies can step up but the idea of the social tariff is good." Early in the first stage of the pandemic United Utili- ties anticipated households coming under greater finan- cial strain in lockdown and so extended its social tariff. This meant it could support twice as many households. "The timing as we emerge from the pandemic is per- fect for the single tariff to be introduced. It'll take some families time to recover financially so now is a great time to do it. I really hope the government moves quickly and that the industry steps up and supports it because it's entirely in everyone's gi" to get on with it." CSOs: the next big challenge As well as increasing consumer support, the company performed strongly for the environment, a"er recording no serious pollution incidents in 2020/21 for the second year in a row. Mogford says better data has been key to reaching this point, during AMP6 extensive monitoring of all com- bined sewage overflows (CSOs) began to see what hap- pened and when they were spilling. With the Environ- ment Bill, legislation will come into force requiring all water and sewerage companies to monitor and report on when and how o"en CSOs are used. At present, Mogford says the data is "not comparing apples with apples" and needs a common basis for measurement. "We report every spill – whether it's to a river or a storm tank. The duration of spills are o"en quite short, so there may be several spills recorded but they are all short. So there's work to be done to look at this through a common lens." Improving and avoiding the use of CSOs has been called for by politicians and environmental groups, but the alternatives are imperfect as well as costly. Therefore nature-based solutions have been called for by Ofwat in initial PR24 plans to reduce the reliance on overflows. "We can't build our way out of this," Mogford says, reflecting on the cost and carbon intensity of expand- ing the sewer networks or digging extra storage spaces. "We're treating rainwater and very dilute sewage, so we should be looking at trying to get the rainwater out of the wastewater systems by diverting it to culverts and other water bodies to stop this surface water getting into the sewers. If we did that, I'm pretty convinced we'd have ample sufficiency in our sewer systems to deal with the challenges going forward." With that in mind, UU has partnerships in place across its region to retain more water in peatlands, plant trees and explore natural solutions to slow the flow. Geographic challenges vary for all companies and require catchment thinking to keep surface water out of the wastewater networks. For UU, which has an above average proportion of combined systems at 40 per cent, it will continue to work with the Environment Agency, local authorities and highways agency to route water away from wastewater networks. Mogford believes CSOs are the company's next big challenge going into AMP8 and he recognises the increasing pressures that urban creep is adding to sur- face run-off as well as growing populations. He says a partnership with government is needed to divert water without mixing it with sewage. "The solution isn't building bigger sewers because that would cost billions across the country. Let's get the water to flow naturally towards water courses instead of going into the sewers. We can't do that overnight." The focus and honesty Mogford talks about has helped turnaround UU to face the challenges of the future and shows no sign of slowing down. "Somebody told me when I first joined that United Utilities is a sleeping giant," Mogford recalls. "It had huge capabilities, but it wasn't being used. And that's what we've done and now it's not sleeping anymore." Ruth Williams, water correspondent "At the end of the day the measure of success is whether the customers actually feel like they're getting a decent service." continued from previous page

• Cover