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| APRIL 2023 | UTILITY WEEK
Water
Event
Through thick and thin
Water sector leaders are pondering how to support customers
through economic turbulence and engage them in efforts to tackle
the climate crisis. Utility Week hosted a roundtable of senior
executives to explore the options and challenges involved.
S
torm clouds are gathering over the UK
water sector. A cost of living crisis today
is expected to feed through major bad
debt challenges in the coming year as deep-
ening financial difficulties cause customers
to default on more household bills. Mean-
while, the frightening impacts of climate
change – including extreme weather and
water shortage – pose increasingly proxi-
mate risks to service reliability.
Notwithstanding these challenges, water
companies must continue to provide life's
essentials – clean water and sanitation – to
all households. This means finding ways to
protect and bolster their own financial and
operational resilience. According to industry
leaders at a recent roundtable debate hosted
by Utility Week, in association with cloud
technology specialist Gentrack, this will
require battle plans to be drawn up on two
major fronts.
First, water companies must drive effi-
ciency and accuracy in their dealings with
customers by adopting digital service chan-
nels and improving the volume and quality
of data they hold in relation to customers
and their properties. This will add credibility
and measurability to the provision of more
tailored solutions for struggling customers,
according to experts from within the indus-
try. It will also "help me credibly and meas-
urably track shareholder return on those
[technology] investments", added one senior
leader with responsibility for credit risk.
Second, water companies must find
new ways of influencing demand by engag-
ing consumers and incentivising reduc-
tions in water usage – especially at times
of particular stress for infrastructure, such
as storm events or droughts. For this objec-
tive to be achieved, "aggressive" growth is
needed in smart water metering, said our
sector leaders.
Better consumption data, coupled with
the improvements in "know-your-customer"
