Delegates at the IBM Start Summit, part of Prince Charles’s Start initiative aiming to promote sustainable living, were discussing links between the energy and water sectors.

 

The water industry consumes some 20 percent of the UK’s electricity, while power stations operate by consuming huge volumes of water. Therefore both sectors need to be considered in tandem in order to meet government objectives to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

 

 

Using an interactive voting system, delegates voted on possible ways to better integrate these sectors. A clear winner –  with 47 per cent of votes cast –  was the formation of an industry working group to explore building a common strategy encompassing energy, water and carbon (plus telecoms as a backbone). The group should consider whether water and energy watchdogs OFWAT and OFGEM should remain seperate, or if a combined regulator would be needed.

 

Steven Holliday, CEO of the National Grid urged the Treasury agency Infrastructure UK, currently examining disparities between water, energy and transport, to make a strong recommendation to government to integrate its regulation of these sectors.

David Clarke, CEO of the Energy Technologies Institute said, “The water side of the industry is managed in a completely different way [from energy]. It is the most conservative and the most unchanged in its approach over the last twenty years.”

 

Opportunities to achieve efficiency savings are being lost through out-of-date regulatory systems, said Clarke: “For instance, Severn Trent Water generate 20 per cent of their electricity from biogas produced from anaerobic digestion plants at their sewage installations, but as this is classed as a waste product they are forced by legislation to not increase this level, even though they could.”

 

The summit began last week and will run until 16 September. Each day delegates will be looking at a particular sector or issue and considering how to overcome barriers to sustainability in that context.