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by Megan Darby
Sewage treatment should be transferred into the regulatory regime for waste, and sewage works auctioned to give energy and waste companies a chance to develop them. That was a radical proposal in a book of ten essays on water sector reform launched by the Westminster Sustainable Business Forum (WSBF) this week.
Leaving water firms in charge of sewerage was an “inefficient relic of the water sector’s development”, argued Peter Jones, director at think-tank Policy Connect.
Jones, who has more than 18 years’ experience in the waste industry, said sewerage sites were “attractive and bankable locations for integrated resource management”.
“Sewerage systems need to be viewed as an asset, not the solution to a problem,” said Jones. Ofwat allowed water companies “a mere £57 million” of investment in renewable energy projects for the 2010-15 period, which would fund “just five sensibly-sized” anaerobic digesters with a combined yield of less than 10MW.
Other essays in the book covered topics such as water security, abstraction reform, ecosystem services, water quality, innovation and competition, leakage and metering.
Barry Sheerman MP, chair of the WSBF, said: “The water supply chain is in desperate need of innovation and new ideas and this report will hopefully spark precisely the sort of debate we need to identify and drive much needed reforms.”
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 9th November 2012.
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