We know from our research and conversations with you that the amount of treated water leaking from our network is a key area you want us to tackle, and we are as keen as you are to see that amount reduce.
We are committed to reducing the amount of water lost to leaks both on our network, and in customers’ homes, by 15 per cent between 2020 and 2025 (based on our annual performance).
Leakage is measured in megalitres (1,000,000/million litres) a day (Ml/d) and we could receive an outperformance payment if we exceed our target, or be required to pay an underperformance penalty if we miss it.
We have two levels of underperformance penalties. The first level of payment is incurred if our performance falls between our target and our 2019/20, three-year average performance, of 95.1Ml/d. The second level of payment is incurred if our performance is worse than our 2019/20, three-year average performance.
How have we performed?
During 2023/24 we achieved a year end leakage rate of 101.4million litres a day, against a target annual leakage rate of 86.7 million litres a day. This has resulted in an underperformance payment of £3.704 million.
This means that our three-year rolling average leakage has increased from 94.5 Ml/d to 97.4 Ml/d, which equates to a 2.4 per cent increase on our baseline.
This level of leakage is not where we hoped at the beginning of this five year period and one we are actively working to improve.
The beginning of the 2023/24 period saw us continuing to recover from the high levels of leakage incurred during the December 2022 cold weather incident.
We have implemented a leakage recovery strategy and as part of that, increased the number of staff out finding and fixing leaks, invested in new leak detection technology, and invested systems to improve the visibility of our pipeline network.
We spend around £40 million a year on finding and fixing leaks across the network and are committed to investing further to reduce the amount of water lost to leaks by half by 2050.
