Water & Wastewater Treatment

12 | MAY 2015 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Industry leader Path to the top 1988 Ian Plenderleith starts his utilities career at Norweb, then the electricity supplier for the North West of England. He initially works in their contact centre before joining the finance department. 1995 Norweb is taken over by North West Water, creating United Utilities (UU). 1999 Attracted by the opportunity to work in UU's international business, Plenderleith moves to Argentina to work as a management accountant for a UU-owned electricity concession in Buenos Aires. 2002 A er UU pulled out of Argentina following the country's financial crisis, he returns to the UK to work as financial controller in its metering and connections business. 2004 Plenderleith leaves for Estonia to become CFO of Tallinna Vesi (Tallinn Water), the country's leading water company, owned by UU. 2008 Becomes CEO of Tallinna Vesi. 2014 Returns to the UK to become CEO of Dee Valley Water in August 2014. that is greater for ourselves." Manganese challenge While Dee Valley is among the best in the industry on some measures, such as leakage, it has been held back by the high number of customer reports of discoloured water. These stem from the high level of manganese in its raw water sources – 74% of its water comes from the River Dee – and the inability of its treatment plants to deal with it. Over the last two AMP periods the company has addressed the issue by upgrading two of its treatment plants, Boughton and Llywyn Onn, while it has also engaged in a significant mains cleaning programme, using ice-pigging technology, to remove residual manganese in the network. Only one facility, the aptly-named Legacy Water Treatment Plant, remains to be upgraded and this will be tackled in AMP6. "Legacy is the last treatment facility that we have to improve to remove manganese through the treatment process, and we're now looking at a range of solutions to resolve this," says Plenderleith. "Ofwat have allowed us the best part of £50M of Capex, including £17M for the Legacy Treatment Plant, and it's now down to us to deliver that programme on behalf of our customers, as efficiently and sustainably as we possibly can." With Dee Valley receiving over 97% of the Totex it asked for from Ofwat in PR14 – the only point of variance being over the cost of its embedded debt - Plenderleith says that the company could have few complaints about the price review process. Its average household customer bill will fall by 4% this year to £139. With the affordability of water high up the agenda of the Welsh Government, Dee Valley has agreed to introduce a social tariff by April next year, while it is one of the few water companies to offer a weekly payment plan. Around 60% of its properties are metered, and the company says it will also make it a priority to identify customers – such as older people living alone in large houses – who could benefit from having a meter added, and offer them this. Dee Valley does not operate in a water-stressed area, so while the company is actively looking to educate customers about the use of water, a more rapid roll-out of metering is not high up the list of priorities at present. Reducing supply interruptions One of Dee Valley Water's most ambitious targets for AMP6 is to reduce the time lost to supply interruptions by 40%, which is what is needed for it to be upper quartile on this measure. Plenderleith says that there are several ways that the company will approach this challenge. "If you are looking to reduce your interruptions to supply, you need to look all the way across the water distribution process," he says. "First of all there is the mains replacement programme – are we choosing the most appropriate mains that will have the greatest impact? Beyond that, is there anything we can do with predictive technology to help us understand where there is a likelihood of mains bursting before it occurs? These are things that we have to start looking into. "Then it's about making the right choice – repair or replace – and ensuring that when you make a repair, you are not weakening the network and creating problems somewhere else. And finally, it's organising your works management systems well so once a burst occurs, your teams repair it in the quickest and most efficient way possible." Plenderleith may now have put aside the international globetrotting of his past roles - he has a young family and wants to raise them in the UK - but his international career has certainly given him a sense of perspective and an appreciation of the strengths of the UK water industry. He is confident that he can replicate the success he achieved in Tallinn with Dee Valley Water, and sees proactive engagement with customers as a key element of strategy in the next five years. "I'd like us to be seen as a valuable part of the Welsh water sector. We're already industry leading on some standards, so we have a platform to build from. The challenge now is to sit down with our customer challenge panel and really engage with them to ask what customers want, how customers want to be informed, and ensure that we start to deliver against those customer expectations. We all have to accept we are in a very privileged position as a monopoly, and with that privilege comes a great responsibility to deliver on behalf of customers. I would like to see Dee Valley Water engaging proactively with its customers, listening to what our customers would like us to deliver, and then delivering over and beyond that, so we are held up as an example not just to the rest of the sector but other utilities and the wider service sector as well." Ian Plenderleith will be speaking at WWT's Wales Water conference in Cardiff on May 20th. For details and to book your place, see www.WWT-wales.net "If you are looking to reduce your interruptions to supply, you need to look all the way across the water distribution process"

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