Photo source: Ofwat
Ofwat’s new focus report on reducing water consumption is to be welcomed if it promotes debate. It suggests various ideas to reduce the consumption of water. While the environmental case to reduce water usage is clear the financial case from the viewpoint of the customer is not.
Water suffers from two main problems, its too cheap and most of the costs are fixed not variable. Ofwat proposes that there should be much greater use of metering but is this really going to change behavior? In most cases water meters are installed in the pavement outside the property boundary so it is impossible for the customer to read them even if they wanted to.
Smart meters may help but so far it is far from certain these will influence consumption and the cost is currently excessive.
What about nudging behaviour and persuading customers to buy appliances that use less water. Here again the low cost of water is the issue. Typically a dishwasher that uses less water costs considerably more, perhaps £100 yet the annual water saving is at best £5, hardly a compelling financial investment case. Instead the trend of consumers to install power showers is continuing unabated. There needs to be some realism in the debate and a recognition that most customers lives are far too busy to want to worry about water consumption. Other solutions need to be found such as improving social housing by installing showers in houses that only have baths.
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