In an Expert Focus aerticle for WaterBriefing, Richard Broome, Managing Director at LSBUD discusses asset resilience in PR19 and the need have proper measures in place to ensure assets are better protected from the threat of third-party damage.

Richard Broome: There is absolutely no doubt that Ofwat’s PR19 has put the water sector under pressure to change. One area of particular focus is asset resilience. This is underpinned by a range of performance commitments which include leakage levels, supply interruptions, and unplanned outages.With Ofwat now treating asset failures caused by third parties very seriously, it doesn’t matter if a water company causes damage to its pipe itself, or if a random contractor or a member of the public is responsible, the negative financial effect remains the same – and it will be considerable.

A need to work together

Clearly, it’s essential that water companies work to better protect their assets; thus, enabling them to meet their regulatory targets, improve the resilience of their network and customer service, whilst avoiding expensive penalties and reputational damage. One of the key regulatory targets addresses leakage. Ofwat demands that leakage in the industry falls by 17 percent between 2020 and 2025.

In order to achieve this, collaboration is crucial. If all water companies were to join a central system that provides the location of the UK’s underground infrastructure – including gas pipes, broadband cables, and oil and chemical pipelines – then a search for assets prior to any excavation work taking place would greatly minimise the risk of damage occurring. This quick process would better protect our underground networks, whilst also keeping construction workers, contractors, and members of the public, safe.

By joining a central system, asset owners would benefit from the ‘safety of the herd’ effect. In essence, the greater the number of asset owners sharing their information through a central portal, the greater the number of enquiries every utility company receives. Indeed, utility providers using the LSBUD portal typically see more than a10-fold increase in the number of searches for their assets.

A real-life example of this is Portsmouth Water. Before it joined LSBUD, it was receiving an average of 2,500 third party mapping requests per year. In 2020, between early April and the middle of June, Portsmouth Water responded to over 4,500 requests, coming in from a range of sources, including fellow utility companies, developers, and local authorities. This means that even during a COVID-19 lockdown, the company received nearly double its yearly search enquiries in just 10 weeks, ensuring its assets were better protected from third-party damage than ever before. Prior to joining LSBUD, Portsmouth Water were only aware of circa 10% of the people who were planning to work near their assets.

By working together, water companies can keep their assets safer, reduce costs through minimising the need for repairs, deliver greater efficiencies, and improve regulatory performance. Plus, with less damage incurred, fewer outages and interruptions will occur, so customer service will naturally improve. Taking a collaborative approach makes good business sense.

Despite all this, the UK’s water companies lag behind other utilities when it comes to registering assets on a central portal. 70 percent of the UK’s electricity networks, and 80 percent of gas networks, are registered with our portal, while just 10 percent of the UK’s water infrastructure is available.

Futureproofing

On top of simply showing excavation workers the location of underground assets, the masses of data generated by search enquiries can also be used for resilience planning. Asset owners can futureproof their networks against third party damage by seeing who is planning to work in the vicinity of their network, the type of work they are doing, and when they are doing it. This allows trends to be realised, providing opportunities for companies to put measures in place to safeguard their networks even more. The more search data you have to work with the better.

To put this point into practice, consider that search locations can be checked against high-risk assets before any work is undertaken. Projects operating in areas that are perceived as high-risk can be anticipated ahead of time and stopped, giving asset owners time to provide suitable supervision or advice.

This ‘data revolution’ allows the profiling of workers and work types, with companies able to lookat a firm’s safety records. This allows them to better control and manage works close to their assets, and continually improve their own understanding of potential risks in the future. By having a clearer picture of the past and the present, the future can be better managed, ensuring greater resilience.

A final thought

We urge water companies to treat Ofwat’s recent focus on asset resilience as a positive catalyst for change. By adopting a collaborative mindset through sharing the location of underground water pipes, the industry will make great strides to achieve and outperform the performance commitments that have been set in PR19, keeping assets safe,and improving resilience.

To find out more about the challenges PR19 poses to water companies and how to navigate them, LSBUD has collated the thoughts of six key industry experts in a whitepaper – ‘Challenges of PR19: How the Water Industry Can Respond’. Click here to download the Whitepaper.