Industry claims 2021 freeze-thaw shows companies have tamed the Beast from the East

Lessons have been learned from the 2018 Beast from the East freeze-thaw event, Water UK asserted as it published a report which demonstrated the 2021 freeze-thaw was successfully managed with little-to-no customer impact. This was despite the 2021 freeze thaw bringing burst-rates that were 25% higher than in 2018 (see chart).

Water UK reported that in 2018, 200,000 customers lost water supply for more than four hours, 60,000 for more than 12 hours, and 36,000 for more than 24 hours. Meanwhile, this year’s event had only minor short term impacts on fewer customers and only in areas local to the bursts. This is all the more impressive given this year’s event coincided with both Covid-19 impacts and the end of the Brexit transition period.

Along with collaboration between water companies, regulators, government and consumer groups, Water UK cited the following lessons adopted following the 2018 experience as important in delivering better customer outcomes:

• improved warning systems – freeze-thaw is now an indicator built into companies’ models for supply/demand impacts;

• clear escalation processes and procedures within companies – Executive-level awareness and involvement in incidents now begins early with the establishment of the industry’s national incident response group;

• reprioritising staff deployment – when trigger points are hit, companies respond by redeploying staff to focus on operational priorities; and

• customer communications – all water companies now run customer-facing campaigns via multiple platforms to communicate the impact of frozen or burst pipes and what preventative measures can be taken.

Water UK set out a key recommendation to improve matters further: “The key area where the water industry, government and regulators should focus going forward, is considering how to reduce the burst rate during a freeze-thaw event, in order to reduce leakage. There is still a knowledge gap about the correlation between a freeze- thaw event and the volume of leakage that occurs, as well as how this translates into areas that are more at risk; more data, information and research is needed in this area. The forthcoming Leakage Routemap, currently being developed by the water companies, should go some way to developing our knowledge and understanding here – we look forward to its publication in autumn 2021.”

There were a further 13 recommendations in the report.