Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
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UtILItY WeeK | 31st OctOber - 6th NOvember 2014 | 23 Operations & Assets from the site is used to produce biogas. This biogas is then fed back through pipes and combusted in an engine to generate both electricity and heat that is circulated around the large facility. The process also creates 62,000 tonnes of fertiliser each year, which is "recycled" back into York- shire's agriculture. If you have an asset or project you would like to see featured here, please email: paul.newton@fav-house.com. Pipe up Robert Carling A s Hurricane Gonzalo leaves a leafy trail in its wake, memories of last winter's floods begin to resurface. Last Christmas, as energy supplies failed, residents in 300,000 properties faced the prospect of exchanging their turkey dinner for a raw sprout salad. How many homes might have been affected if the power stations themselves had flooded? This is a reason- able question given that last April, Daniel Johns, head of adaptation at the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said: "It looks as though a significant portion of the electricity network is located in areas vulnerable to flooding." Furthermore, the CCC's 2014 progress report, Managing Climate Risks to Well-Being and the Economy, states that climate change will lead to an increase in the number of infrastructure assets exposed to high temperatures, flooding, coastal erosion and subsidence in the coming decades. Utility companies are making progress with increasing their assets' resilience to flood- ing, but there are still many substations at risk. With limited funds available, assets have to be prioritised, but this can't be done without flood maps. An inexpensive asset screen- ing service is oen the best way for utilities to start prioritising, but such screening is only as good as the maps used. The trouble with flood maps is that they are computer models so they don't give definitive, unerring answers. But they are still the best tools available for indicating flood hazard. There are many flood maps available and they differ in scope, quality and cost. Here are some points to consider. Check the quality of the hydrology, the hydraulic modelling soware, the terrain model and the resolution. Ask when the maps were last updated and which flood perils the maps include; at the very least they should provide river, surface water, coastal and groundwater flood data, with reservoir dam break and canal failure as important extras. Flooding from sewers would be a bonus, but reliable data for this is hard to come by. Are defences included in the modelling? And in the case of coastal defences, has wave overtopping been modelled? Wave overtopping caused much of the damage in last year's Windstorm Xaver and needs to be modelled to get a truer picture of likely outcomes. There is no doubt that the country needs to invest massively in flood defences, but with government fund- ing being insufficient for the task, infrastructure manag- ers must rise to the challenge. Robert Carling, technical direct business development, JBA Risk Management "Climate change will lead to a rise in infrastructure assets exposed to flooding, coastal erosion and subsidence" With limited funds available, assets have to be prioritised, but this can't be done without flood maps