Water UK reports on progress to net zero carbon by 2030

Consultancies Mott MacDonald and Ricardo presented the water industry with their analysis so far of options to achieve sector-wide net zero carbon by 2030, at an event on Thursday hosted by Water UK.

Commissioned by companies under the auspices of the Public Interest Commitment (PIC), the consultancies pointed to options including cutting treatment emissions, increasing energy efficiency, boosting self generated renewables, purchasing green electricity, providing biogas to the grid, and electrifying fleets. The next stage of the work will be to pull the options into a delivery strategy, which individual companies will be able to draw on as they plot their net zero carbon paths.

The net zero PIC goal is led by the chief executives of Northumbrian Water, Anglian Water and Yorkshire Water, all of whom spoke at the event. Water is the first sector to commit to decarbonise by 2030, 20 years ahead of the UK government schedule.

Anglian Water kicked off a new major solar installation last week, at its Grafham Water site. Nearly 42,000 solar modules will generate over 26% of the energy used by the works – enough electricity to power 3,000 houses, saving around 3,500 tonnes of carbon annually.