Features

• UK
• Europe
• Interviews
• Utility Engineering
• People
• One-minute Interview
• Forward Features

Hot Topics

• Electric Vehicles

This story is tagged with the following keywords

Reducing water consumption is a win-win for the environment and suppliers

25 February 2009

Reducing people's demand for water is no longer merely an aspirational goal, it is essential to ensure adequate future supplies, says Trevor Bishop.

It was more than century ago that the last great transformation in water resource management occurred. The Victorians made the change from a broadly subsistence approach to an era of predict and provide, introducing integrated planning and robust infrastructure. This Victorian legacy has served us well throughout the 20th century and remains the cornerstone of a modern approach to managing utilities.

In the 21st century, we have begun a new water resources revolution. We still need to predict, but rather than simply building our way out of future water deficits, we need to manage the demand. We are increasingly recognising the need to reduce demand as a first choice for sustainable water management.
The reasons for this changing approach have shifted from a "green" intuition in the 1980s and 1990s to a realisation that we are facing new and compelling reasons to adapt the way we operate. Since the last major planning round in 2004, it has become increasingly clear that managing water demand is about much more than just water. The Environment Agency is using the current periodic review (PR09) as an opportunity to work closely with Ofwat and put pressure on water companies to invest in and protect the quality of our water infrastructure to ensure that we have a sustainable future.
Climate change is a serious immediate threat that forces us to consider the links between water, energy and carbon dioxide. The life cycle emissions of the water cycle, including heating water in the home, have a carbon footprint similar to the UK aviation sector. So it is clear that reducing water demand is valuable both to conserve energy and to meet carbon reduction targets. With concerns over rising utility bills, this linkage has added benefits for affordability, since some water demand measures will enable metered customers to reduce not only their water bills but also their wastewater and energy bills.
*Climate change*
There is another and more crucial reason to manage water demand better in future. The best available science shows that climate change is likely to have a disproportionate impact on future water resources. International recognition is growing that improved water demand management is key for climate change adaptation. The risks from climate change to this vital, and yet vulnerable, natural resource mean that reducing our use is key to increasing longer-term water resource resilience.
In the past 18 months, the water demand management agenda has turned an important corner. For the first time, some of the more progressive water companies are setting out how they plan to decrease water demand in their 25-year draft water resource plans.
These are combinations of metering, tariffs, leakage and water efficiency. Looking at other companies' plans, we see a range of scenarios, from stable water use through to more significant increases over the next 25 years. The latter companies feel unable to reduce demand, considering it uneconomic or too difficult to implement. It is equally important, however, to understand some of the underlying issues that can influence companies' thinking on demand management, which are rarely discussed openly.
The first concerns incentives and disincentives. Many of the primary opportunities to outperform the regulatory contract are associated with building more assets and selling more water, not less. With its revenue correction mechanism, Ofwat has made an important first step in removing one of the more perverse disincentives for reducing demand. However, other disincentives remain and many opportunities for true incentives are still to be explored.
*Customer behaviour*
The second issue is "hearts and minds". The shift from relying solely on water resource infrastructure to partial reliance on customer behaviour will be difficult. Water company managers will want to be absolutely sure they can maintain public supplies. The government's Future Water strategy outlines a vision for reducing average per person consumption across England from 150 litres per day to 130 litres or less by 2030. Reductions in water demand of this order, 13-20 per cent, would represent a major shift in the management of water resources with important benefits for longer-term resilience and sustainability.
This vision from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is based on some of the best available evidence about what is achievable and at what cost. However, there is a dilemma: although parts of the evidence base are well supported, such as reductions in water use when customers pay by volume, there is less evidence for many other areas. Without wide implementation, the evidence will always be struggling to reach statistical validity.
Waterwise has made real progress in this area by pulling together water company research and enabling greater clarity on the relative cost and benefits expected from various water-efficiency measures. The industry needs to push forward with demand-side measures using the lessons learned from previous trials to achieve maximum savings, otherwise uncertainty around demand-side measures will remain and we will continue to rely on resource development that may not be sustainable in the future.
*European neighbours*
Another indicator, which helps to understand top level opportunities, is comparison with some of our most similar European neighbours. International comparisons of water demand are difficult, and run the risk of comparing apples and pears. However, using the best available current data reveals that many of our closest neighbours consistently report daily per capita consumption lower than our 150 litres. In Belgium it is 108 litres, in the Netherlands 124, Denmark 125 and Germany 127 litres. These figures suggest that the Defra vision to reduce water demand is realistic and strikes a good balance between prudence, leadership and aspiration.
The current set of draft water resource management plans published in 2008 also reveals what companies considered to be possible. Twelve of them planned to intervene and cut water demand. Three companies planned cuts exceeding 10 litres per day by 2035, and one planned to reduce per capital consumption from 175 to 134 litres per day. Five companies wanted to aim for levels below 140 litres per day by 2035, which is close to the Defra vision. Conversely, the plans highlighted that a number of companies felt unable to justify or commit to reduced water demand and continued to plan for increases.
The Environment Agency has conducted a comprehensive analysis of long-term water demand to understand what is achievable and to inform its water resource strategy, due in April. This work has used and collated a wide range of evidence, including that from water companies, and outputs from the government's market transformation initiative. It shows the combined effect of different interventions, ranging from metering and tariff policies through to taking up the code for sustainable homes.
*Reduced demand*
The evidence consistently reinforces the view from government, other regulators and many water companies that water demand can be reduced. The main questions now are what combination of intervention is best in terms of economics, and what is the best balance between new resources and demand management in an uncertain future. Although the change may have started for many, we have a long way to go. Barriers still exist to making purely objective assessments for the appropriate balance between new resources and demand management. The two main areas that need urgent attention are the evidence base, to support both confidence and the economics, and greater top level policy integration.
The government's recent Water Savings Group (WSG) was an important first step in addressing both of these issues. One of the key outcomes from the group was a task driven by the Environment Agency and Defra to define water stress and amend the rules to enable companies in the most seriously water-stressed areas to impose compulsory metering of customers.
The Water Savings Group was only the start. Water UK continues to make the important point that the industry needs help to deliver government's 130 litres per day vision. A case in point is metering, which is central to managing demand, because businesses and customers paying by volume have a real incentive to cut waste. However, water companies outside of the most seriously water-stressed areas are still unable to implement compulsory metering, even if it happens to be the most cost-effective solution for customers and the environment. This limits water demand management and, quite possibly, means that some customers pay for more expensive options with less opportunity to manage their bills.
Another fruitful area of policy development is the emerging water, energy and carbon nexus. Two positive developments in this area recently include the Energy Saving Trust taking on a water advice remit and Defra's Carbon Emissions Reduction Target on energy suppliers looking to recognise water efficiency for the first time.
*Energy links*
These are significant steps. However, many more mutually supportive links between water and energy conservation and demand management are still to be realised. From April 2010, the water industry will participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment, a new emissions trading scheme, which includes less energy-intensive sectors. Those companies who take positive actions to reduce customer demand will be contributing to a reduction in the carbon footprint of the water industry.
However, significant household emissions reductions arising from lower water use in the home would not currently count as a benefit for the water industry under the likely scheme. This issue should be further debated, since allowing water companies to claim this benefit could be a powerful incentive for delivering further water-efficiency measures and reducing emissions
Delivering reduced water demand is a win-win for companies, the environment and society as a whole. No one party can deliver this, but as we start to pull together we can quantify the change required to safeguard sustainable water resources in an uncertain future.
_Trevor Bishop is head of water resource management with the Environment Agency_.
Source: Steve Hobson

Comment on this story Screen name Comment Security

Highlighted Jobs