Ofwat has issued updated bioresources market guidance on data published by the 11 largest sewerage companies in England and Wales following its recent consultation on proposals to expand the range of information they provide.

The regulator has issued a new direction to the companies which replaces in its entirety the 11 October 2017 version of the direction.

Following its analysis of the consultation, which ran from 17 March to 15 April 2021, Ofwat has now confirmed its intention to implement all of the proposals.

As with the previous direction, the new version is aimed at supporting the further development and operation of the bioresources market. The sewerage companies are required to provide the information to allow third parties to identify market opportunities and facilitate discussions with the sewerage companies about and to enable Ofwat to effectively monitor the bioresources market.

The key objectives of the direction are as follows:

• to provide standardised and defined information to enable potential market participants to identify opportunities to supply services in the treatment, transport, recycling and disposal of bioresources;
• to ensure information is comparable and reliable for use by market participants;
• to enable Ofwat to monitor the bioresources markets to see how effectively they develop.

The direction incorporates additional reporting requirements for the companies in relation to a number of areas, including:

• the renewable energy incentive scheme for each sludge treatment centre
• the principal and secondary destination of sludge, what share goes of sludge goes to these destinations and by what mode
• the quantity of sludge treated by other regulated companies and their associated companies separately to the quantity of sludge treated by non-regulated companies
• the number of formal / informal approaches from regulated companies and their associate companies to provide sludge treatment services
• publication of non-confidential market activity information at the same time as their Annual Performance Report

Commenting on the new direction, Ofwat said:

“Following feedback from the industry and wider stakeholders, as well as drawing on the experience of producing our bioresources market monitoring report, we identified a number of changes which we considered needed to be made to the bioresources information relevant companies are required to provide. We consider these changes will further facilitate bioresources market activity.”

“Stakeholders also raised high level points on barriers to market development and the necessity of bioresources data collection by Ofwat….We will consider barriers to further market development as part of our ongoing review of the bioresources market.”

Click here to download the new Bioresources Market Information Direction

Click here to download Bioresources information consultation – summary of responses and final decisions