Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | SEPTEMBER 2022 | 19 Vulnerable customers dev ops teams from water and energy, in a room and it takes them 10 minutes to go – OK, there's your solution." Another senior executive concurred that the technical solutions are all at our • nger- tips and that the challenge is to join up the e• orts. They said: "We spend too long in this industry trying to get consensus and perfec- tion when what we need is speed and the next best thing." One participant who has worked within government pointed to a wealth of data that is already shared between departments but is unavailable to utilities. They cited informa- tion held by the Department for Work & Pen- sions and the O‡ ce for National Statistics as valuable indicators not just of vulnerability but of the potential to tip into this bracket. As one industry • gure put it: "The chal- lenge we ultimately face is to build a system that can view a customer and say, you're not vulnerable today, you might not be vulner- able tomorrow but the next day, you might be. That's hugely valuable because there's a whole suite of support out there that can be targeted to avoid that customer ever get- ting to that cli• edge. We can use the data to intervene before it really gets serious." Barriers to success To return to that headline challenge, what is actually stopping us from joining up that support? Nervousness around GDPR was one com- mon reason cited by companies around the table, with one water company executive saying: "We're just not agile enough in terms of our data and so our risk aversion in that space is su‡ cient that it will stop the art of the possible there." Another issue is customers being unwill- ing to identify themselves as vulnerable in the • rst place. As one network executive put it: "No-one wants to be vulnerable. It's always some- thing that happens to someone else. But perhaps that's a re' ection that we're not approaching it in the right way. We need to • nd a way to say, our data shows you might need this support, do you want it? And make it one click or one phone call away." The key to success in this situation is trust. For the representatives from DNOs and gas networks this presented a problem. Without a direct billing relationship with the customer, it is di‡ cult to establish the connection that can open up a conversation about speci• c support needs. A director at a gas network said that o" en the only time the bene• ts of a PSR are made clear to customers is during a supply interruption. "It's when they see a hot plate being deliv- ered to a neighbour that they want to under- stand, how did they get that and how do I get it? Great, we can have the conversation there and get them on the list. But it would be so much better if we could communicate that bene• t before it's actually needed." With clear consensus in the room that the industry is on the tipping point of join- ing up support on vulnerable customers, talk turned to the practicalities of making this a reality. A representative from Google Cloud pointed out that the data privacy issues could easily be overcome – "that's just some rules we'd have to build in". They said the key decision is who should own the data, stressing that it should be a trusted organisation. The utilities were clear that it should not be them, with one saying: "We can build it, we can show others how to join but then we can step back and someone else can own it. The problem is that in a world of paralysis, nobody wants to lead." The role of government It was generally agreed that government needs to play a central role, with one DNO executive saying: "It needs to be somebody neutral. Someone where it's clear there's no risk of exploiting the customer." In order to convince government of the validity of such a project, it was agreed that clear evidence would need to be provided from regional trials – ideally in diverse areas. A business case would need to be developed, to show the Treasury how this would ben- e• t customers and how ultimately it makes sound economic sense as well. As an example of how national projects have been scaled up from local innova- tion with the support of government, the group discussed the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR). This project to cre- ate a digital map of underground pipes and cables grew out of Northumbrian Water's Innovation Festival. A" er a successful pilot, the project secured government funding and partnership with the Geospatial Commission to scale it up. One roundtable participant who had been involved with the project said the buy-in from the leadership of Northumbrian, as well as other key stakeholders, was key in giving civil servants con• dence in the project. "On paper it looked good but it needed that evi- dence on the ground that it could work." It was agreed that now is the right time to pitch to government how valuable a shared PSR could be and that during a cost of liv- ing crisis, utilities have valuable insight into emerging vulnerabilities that is not being fully utilised. As a water company executive put it: "A cancelled direct debit can be a really power- ful signal. If people are defaulting on their water bills, there's a chance to get in there and see what support is available before that leads to the energy bills not being paid, the council tax and so on." The roundtable ended with a call to action – to take this consensus forward and start to build a plan to present to government. It was agreed that a stakeholder map of utilities' interactions with government was needed in the • rst place, to identify which depart- ments should be approached. Google Cloud and the participants agreed they would work together to identify a set of rules for a shared PSR. Meanwhile, learnings from the projects currently underway would be shared, with organisations not represented at the round- table invited to show their support. An energy retailer summed up the momentum built during the roundtable. "It really does seem like everyone is push- ing in the same direction – and it's towards a central repository of data on vulnerable cus- tomers. Anything is better than what we have now. And if it's going to take • ve years to build it, then better to start now than talk for another • ve years before we can even begin." James Wallin, editor Utility Week and Google Cloud will be working together to take this project forward over the next few months. To get involved please con- tact jameswallin@fav-house.com. in association with "We need to fi nd a way to say, our data shows you might need this support, do you want it? And make it one click or one phone call away." "We're just not agile enough in terms of our data and so our risk aversion in that space is suffi cient that it will stop the art of the possible there."

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