Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/877922
16 | october 2017 | WWt | www.wwtonline.co.uk A Resilient Business T he approach to PR19 has seen water companies take engagement with their customers to new heights, as they seek to establish a set of outcomes that will shape their investment programmes for the start of AMP7 in 2020. In the case of Thames Water, this process has included an element of 'gamification', where rather than simply being asked for their preferences, customers are steered through a computer game which gives insight into the impact and cost implications of their choices and the trade-offs involved in running a water utility. So what has Thames learned from the exercise and how might it influence plans for AMP 7 and beyond? "The interesting thing for me which I think has risen up very strongly is customers really caring about the impact on the environment," says Lawrence Gosden, Managing Director of Wastewater at Thames. "We've seen some very strong support for doing more environmentally, The Talk: interview necessity thinking decades ahead. This is certainly true for one of the big current themes in the industry – resilience. With much work currently going on to assess the vulnerabilities of infrastructure to risks like floods and droughts, and the ability to recover from such incidents, Gosden believes that the Thames area, containing the UK capital, is in some respects a special case. "I would say that with 25% of the UK's GDP running through London, I think London needs a special review of what is the right level of resilience in that arena," he says. "That's something we'll be paying close attention to. "I think people can fall into the trap of thinking, though, that resilience is about building lots of extra kit and building redundancy into assets. It definitely isn't that, even though it might be needed in some degree. The way we're understanding resilience is very much about splitting it down and understanding really what service this month we talk to Lawrence Gosden, MD for wastewater at thames Water, about building flood resilience in London and the water company's preparations for Pr19 Interview by James Brockett not only in the obvious areas of reducing pollution, and improving environmental performance, but also things such as the generation of renewable energy. As a leader of a wastewater business, that's fantastic to see." With Thames's wastewater operation now generating almost 50% of the energy it uses from renewable sources – around 340GWh a year, saving around £40M in running costs – it's little surprise that customers have given the thumbs-up to further green energy investment, which will help keep bills down so directly. However, quantifying the costs and benefits of other environmental interventions is less clear cut, and this is the central task behind much of Thames' ongoing PR19 work, ahead of publication of the five-year business plan early next year. However Gosden is keen to point out that PR19 is just a 'snapshot' of the longer-term business planning going on behind the scenes, where the utility is of