Scottish Water has reported a strong financial overall performance with the publication of its 2014/15 Annual Report – its pre-tax surplus has increased to £110.7 million, £9.7 million up on last year.

The public sector water company delivered £470 million of investment in infrastructure during 2014/15, with a total of £2.4 billion across the 2010-15 investment programme. This has seen the successful delivery of more than 3,300 capital projects ranging in size from the modernisation of pumping stations in the Scottish Borders and Highlands, to a major new water treatment works that serves Edinburgh and extensive upgrades to water mains.

Scottish Water delivered a group surplus before tax of £110.7 million, an increase of £9.7 million from last year.  The firm’s regulated surplus increased by £17.1 million to £77.1 million which is all reinvested in the delivery of current and future services to customers.

Scottish Water customers’ average household charge was £39 lower per year than the average household charge in England and Wales, with record levels of customer satisfaction. Results from the UK Customer Satisfaction Index in January 2015 showed that Scottish Water had become the UK’s most trusted utility. A survey of more than 40,000 customers showed that, in 2014/15, customer satisfaction had reached a new high of 92.1%.

Since 2009, charges have reduced by 10 per cent relative to the rate of inflation. The company once again achieved its best ever environmental performance, with seven successive years of reducing its carbon footprint. The firm’s carbon footprint for 2013/14, the most recently reported year, showed a decrease of 3.3%, or over 13,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), compared with 2012/13. The water service continues to have the lowest carbon intensity in the UK, largely due to the opportunity to use gravity to supply many of its customers rather than pumping.

During 2014/15, Scottish Water put in place new investment planning and delivery arrangements, while procuring the following three new investment delivery alliances that will each deliver part of the £3.5 billion 2015–21 investment programme.

• Caledonia Water Alliance, a partnership of Morrison Utility Services and Aecom -  water infrastructure alliance partner responsible for the delivery of investment projects to improve the water supply networks.
• aBV Alliance, a partnership of Black and Veatch and Byzak (part of Amey) -  waste water infrastructure alliance partner responsible for investment projects to improve the waste water networks.
• Efficient Service Delivery (ESD), a joint venture between Galliford Try, MWH Treatment and Black and Veatch - non infrastructure alliance partner to oversee the delivery of projects including work on reservoirs, water treatment works and pumping stations.

Scottish Water is also developing rural frameworks to work with smaller contractors to ensure efficient delivery of improvements to assets at a local level.

The company has also embarked on a programme to assess the resilience of all its major water supply systems to ensure a comprehensive understanding of system risks that will inform future investment to boost the resilience of the systems.

Firm expects to be facilitating more energy generation than it consumes by 2018/19

On energy, Scottish Water is aiming to reduce its base energy consumption by over 10 Gigawatt hours (GWh)in the new regulatory period. The firm has installed more than 4,000 smart meters at Scottish Water sites which is now enabling it to target energy efficiency opportunities.

The utility can now generate 45GWh of the 450GWh of electricity it needs every year, with the use of renewable technologies playing a key role. Last year Scottish Water increased its renewable installed capacity by 60% to 45GWh and has been continuing to increase and diversify its renewable portfolio to include hydro, wind, photovoltaic solar and combined heat and power (CHP).

The water company currently has 27 hydro schemes in operation, while 6 other sites are in development and has also installed 13 small or medium-scale wind turbines, 16 photovoltaic solar and 2 combined heat and power schemes.

More than 40 of its treatment works are now either partially or fully self-sufficient in relation to how much energy is generated versus the amount of energy they consume. In the next regulatory period it will also be piloting the recovery of heat from waste water and the use of biomass for heating at treatment works.

Scottish Water already hosts 350GWh of third party wind schemes and is working with several developers on other sites. The company expects to be facilitating more energy generation than it consumes by 2018/19.