Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | SEPTEMBER 2021 | 37 production, that can power our eets, you've got the potential to feed into district heating schemes, you've got the nutrients that are produced that can be put to another use, you can use the oxygen that's created." A peer agreed, pointing to work done in the Netherlands more than a decade ago. "This idea of turning a wastewater treat- ment plant into an actual energy factory and a renewable resource is game-changing. "That synergistic symbiosis has hap- pened. Waste is now being seen as some- thing that can be exploited in other areas." Questions to answer However, despite these opportunities, the water sector has a lot of questions to answer over the next nine years as it seeks to reach its ambitious goal of net zero. As one company director put it: "My biggest concern is that in the water sector our carbon footprint starts when someone ushes their loo. The biggest challenge we have is our process emissions, from every sewer in every street in every corner of the country, through to our treatment processes. "That is going to require a complete rein- vigoration of our process emissions opera- tions. The science is very embryonic. We don't even really understand the size of the carbon footprint from our process emissions. There's lots of research to understand that and that will inevitably see that ‚ gure for emissions grow in the short term." Another water sector executive said the challenge was to "get a common understand- ing of critical uncertainty", adding: "How do you deal with that at a policy, regulatory and then business level? At the moment there's no common understanding of what the plau- sible futures are and what we need to deal with. "Our plans need to be stepping stones towards that future but we need to under- stand when to invest. "Understanding what the building blocks are and what are the no-regrets investment is really important." The conversation ultimately came around again to the need for collaboration and the energy-water nexus. As one water executive said: "We know we have to take the regulator, government and the public on a journey with us. There's a lot of areas where we have complementary goals and can o‡ er solutions to each other. If we can be more aligned it's a much more powerful message that our decarbonisation journeys aren't done is silos, that we're all a part of a wider picture." James Wallin, editor Comment James Houlton UK Energy and Utilities Sector Leader, Amazon Web Services A mazon are passionate about sustainability and getting to net zero. We are taking action to target net zero carbon by 2040 and we understand the challenges that large utilities companies face. We are on a path to powering our global operations with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025 (‚ ve years ahead of our original 2030 target) and in 2020, we became the world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, reaching 65 per cent renewable energy across our business. We are taking a broad, science-based approach to reducing our own carbon emissions and improving e• ciency across our operations. This includes Scope 1, 2 and 3 as de‚ ned by the GHG Protocol. We understand that it is scope 3 that provides the greatest challenge to utility companies. At AWS, we want to build on this approach to help customers accelerate towards their net zero goals working together and create solutions that address speci‚ c industry challenges. AWS understands that utility companies have some of the greatest challenges with reducing their carbon output. It is also clear that utilities are at the heart of the transition challenges we all face as we strive for a more sustainable decarbonised future. The transition to net zero will test every utility company's ability to provide new services based on choice, transparency and exibility. There will be great opportunities for innovation but also many tough choices in the decades ahead including: serving the underserved in our communities; ensuring asset optimisation and resiliency; managing costs; guiding regulation; and meeting the ever-changing expectations of consumers. The transition to net zero is a complex endeavour, already under intense scrutiny. One of the ways we are helping our customers is by connecting them to parts of our organisation that have a similar challenge; whether that is eet management, powering assets or assessing alternative fuel sources. We also work with customers and partners to innovate faster and further on the AWS cloud. Our partners have developed, and are building, cloud-based solutions that capture, analyse and report across all three scopes. Amazon recognises that in order to get to net zero, utilities need deeper expertise in data visualisation, modelling and optimisation capabilities to support the transition. Organisations need to be able to constantly iterate, innovate and develop solutions as their thinking, goals and aspirations expand. We are helping our customer create the right culture, ways of working and operating models to achieve these important outcomes for a more sustainable a resilient future. Only by working alongside and collaborating with our customers to bring these mechanisms, ways of working, cultural learning and enabling cloud technology together will we solve this, and other, complex but highly important industry challenges. Amazon understands the challenges in targeting net zero in large utility organisations as we go through this ourselves, and test and learn. We have the tools and mechanisms to help our customers on this journey and want to help. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this, so please get in touch to discuss further – jhoulto@amazon.co.uk. "Collaboration and partnership is key in your net zero journey" in association with "Our plans need to be stepping stones towards the future but we need to understand when to invest." "Decision- makers have to understand you don't need to get your data perfect to make decisions."

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