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| AUGUST 2021 | UTILITY WEEK
Special report on decarbonising water
Analysis
Water sector green drive
hits bump in the road
A new insight report from Utility Week in association with Mott
Macdonald looks at how water companies are aiming to reduce
carbon emissions from energy and the challenges they face to
do so.
P
roposed changes to network charges threaten to
undermine plans by water companies to generate
renewable power on their sites in efforts to become
net zero by 2030.
This is one of the conclusions of a new Utility Week
report produced in association with Mott MacDonald.
The report The Generation Game: Can Water Companies
Win the 2030 Race to Net Zero? focuses on water compa-
nies' plans to reduce emissions from energy consump-
tion. It explores how they are navigating the labyrinthine
pros and cons of renewables strategies, the challenges
of power purchase agreements, and their mounting con-
cerns that new Ofgem rules will undermine savings in
operational expenditure in their plans.
Water UK's "Net Zero 2030 Routemap", launched in
November 2020, encourages water companies to gener-
ate 80 per cent of their own power through renewables
in a bid to cut emissions, become more resilient and
reduce costs. But water companies have expressed con-
cern that Ofgem's Targeted Charging Review (TCR): Sig-
nificant Code Review (SCR) and other charging changes
in the pipeline will make their renewable plans finan-
cially unviable. Ofgem is exploring a move towards
fixed charges to assets based on capacity of connection,
rather than charges relating to usage (for both electricity
and gas).
Many water companies are looking to partner with
investors/developers by leasing them sites on water com-
Thames Water commissioned what was then the world's largest floating solar farm in 2016 with the 23,000-panel installation at its Queen
Elizabeth II reservoir in Surrrey. The £6 million project powers a nearby water treatment works.
