Hydro Nation: annual report 2022

National: Supporting communities and Scotland's water economy

Scotland is a Hydro Nation, one that views and manages its water resources responsibly, and views our relationship, and the ways we work, with the water environment and industry as inextricably linked to our national identity.

Our water sector, including Scottish Water, is worth an estimated £3.7 billion to the Scottish Economy and provides almost 17,000 jobs^[1]. We are committed to the sector's growing success and will work with our enterprise agencies and Scotland Development International to support our businesses into new markets. The examples below help to underline how the Hydro Nation agenda is delivering in Scotland, and for Scotland.

Scottish Water: Delivering for you

Scottish Water continues to invest and deliver infrastructure that is fit for communities throughout the country now and for decades to come. 2022 marked the second year of the 2021-27 investment period, delivering improved services for customers despite increasingly challenging construction market conditions as a result of the cost of living crisis.

State of the art supply for Islay

Scottish Water's multi-million pound investment for Islay came on-stream in January 2022 after a marathon journey across land and sea and months of on-site testing. The Transportable Treatment Unit (TTU) is now connected to the network supplying nearly 2000 customers in the Bowmore and Port Ellen areas.

This £2.5 million investment is just part of Scottish Water's on-going programme of works for Islay to provide capacity for future housing developments but also resilience and improvements to the existing network. The new TTU was transported under police escort more than 200 miles from Ross-shire Engineering's specialist factory in Muir of Ord where it was built and partially commissioned off-site. The unit provides capacity for an additional 70,000 litres, boosting the 81,000 litres already supplied from the existing Torra Water Treatment Works on the island.

As part of the installation of the TTU a new pipe bridge across the River Torra has been constructed to support a short section of the two kilometres of new raw water main that has also been installed north of the water treatment works.

Scottish Water intelligent assets helping to improve service and protect the environment

Investment in Scottish Water's intelligent asset base on its wastewater infrastructure, including remote sensors and data-driven insight, is set to improve its service to customers, protect the environment, reduce costs and assist in its journey towards net zero carbon emissions.

The early stages of investment of up to £100m over the next five years in its intelligent asset base – designed to use new technology to monitor sewage pipes rather than relying on customers reporting a problem – have indicated that Scottish Water will be able to better predict and prevent wastewater issues before they impact customers and the environment.

Trials of the new technology have shown that it will give the company real-time insights into how its network is operating and enable it to be more proactive in how it responds to issues and to solve problems before customers and the environment are affected. The technology is currently being trialled in four areas - Erskine, Inverness, Lossiemouth and East Calder – each of which have suffered from flooding and pollution events historically. Scottish Water has placed sensors that detect the presence of blockages and has already used this data to avert potential Environmental Pollution Incidents (EPIs) and flooding of customers' premises.

Using the learning from these four areas, Scottish Water intends to extend this intelligence into other areas which experience similar issues.

New era for two Highland wastewater treatment works

Scottish Water has taken over the ownership and operation of two wastewater treatment works (WwTW) in the Highlands following the conclusion of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) arrangement which has been in place since 1996. Veolia, who operate the plant on behalf of the Catchment consortium, handed over to Scottish Water on Sunday 29th May 2022 as planned, on the expiry of the existing contract. The Highland PFI includes Allanfearn WwTW to the east of Inverness and Fort William WwTW at Caol Point, as well as the two sites' associated infrastructure.

The change will enable opportunities for Scottish Water to optimise the running of both sites to provide better value for customers as well as harness their potential to contribute towards the target of net zero carbon emissions by 2040 across the organisation.

Allanfearn WwTW serves the city of Inverness and its surrounding area, treating the waste water for a population equivalent of around 90,000, while Fort William WwTW serves around 25,000.

Programme SWIFT - improving flooding investigations

The Flooding Investigation Team (FIT) at Scottish Water are seeing the advantages of working with a new I.T. system and the improved data quality that it brings. The ease of sharing information across the business has improved greatly since the launch of Programme SWIFT and it is Scottish Water's customers who are benefiting from this.

The information that is collected by Sewer Response when they attend a flooding incident is key for the Flooding Investigation Team. It enables and informs their investigations, ensuring the possible causes of flooding are fully understood and that measures to minimise a repeat incident are implemented. Thus, minimising the impact on customers and the environment.

The new I.T. system, Salesforce, gathers information for teams across Customer Service Delivery. It is able to take customer interviews and provide online detailed maps rather than using large print outs of the area affected. Other benefits being able to review stored photos and documents, as well as being able to check previous case history. Teams now feel equipped to take on this important role as they are armed with all this information before engaging with customers, which lends itself to having more constructive conversations.

Hydro Nation Chair launch

The Hydro Nation Chair research and innovation programme, funded by Scottish Water and hosted by University of Stirling, was formally launched in March 2022. The programme brings together research, industry and communities to harness new technologies and build the infrastructure necessary to enable Scottish Water to deliver on their net zero ambitions.

Professor Andrew Tyler, the Hydro Nation Chair, will lead a team of six fellows who will find and lead collaborative opportunities throughout the water sector. Research Leader Fellows from Heriot-Watt University, the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian University and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology will build research programmes around four areas: eliminating emissions from infrastructure, driving down process emissions, enhancing the natural environment and embracing the circular economy.

Two innovation fellows, based at the University of Stirling, will link research and industry to develop commercially viable solutions to water challenges, and will work with communities on place-based innovation within water catchments.

Improving urban waters

On 22 December 2021 the Minister for Environment and Land Reform gave a statement in the Scottish Parliament to highlight the latest River Basin Management Plan (RBMP3) which sets objectives and provides a programme of actions for delivering improvements to Scotland's water bodies. In tandem, Scottish Water published an Improving Urban Waters Routemap to explain how it will direct its own investment to help achieve improvements under RBMP3. The first annual update to the routemap was published in December 2022. Key indicators of progress include:

• 54 projects have been initiated to develop solutions and support delivery of all high priority CSO discharges by 2027
• the projects will be developed over the next two years, in line with Scottish Water's capital investment process
• priority locations have been identified for 1,000 spill monitors, with installation programmed over 2023 and 2024
• Wastewater Intelligent Network installed in 4 catchments and a plan is in place to extend to 12 further catchments by December 2023 covering 27.5% of Scotland's population
• a project has been developed in the River Almond catchment with representatives from Scottish Water, SEPA, Hydro Nation Chair, West Lothian Council, Forth Rivers Trust and community groups
• spill data which is reported to SEPA is now published on Scottish Water's website

Delivering environmental savings to the Scottish public sector

As a responsible water retailer, Business Stream has an important role to play in supporting its customers to reduce their water use to help lower costs and deliver environmental savings. Since being awarded the Scottish Government Public Sector Water and Waste Water Framework contract in early 2020, Business Stream has been working with over 200 public sector bodies across the country to help generate water efficiencies. Through a combination of discounts and pro-active water efficiency and leak detection measures, in the past year Business Stream has saved the sector over £2.2 million in water costs and 1.4 billion litres of water – the equivalent of 558 Olympic sized swimming pools. Business Stream has delivered energy savings too, helping to save over 586,000 tonnes of carbon last year, which will contribute to the sector's efforts to meet the Scottish Government's net zero target.

To help deliver further water efficiency savings, in 2021 Business Stream developed and launched its annual water efficiency fund, which enables public sector bodies in Scotland to apply for funding to help deliver water efficiency projects. Public bodies can apply for a proportion of the £50,000 annual fund with an external panel selecting the successful applications. To date, the fund has helped to fund a range of projects including a Glasgow City Council scheme aiming to help young children learn about the importance of saving water; an innovative water capture and recirculation project at the University of Glasgow; and the introduction of rainwater harvesting at NHS Tayside. This fund not only removes any financial barriers to investing in water efficiency, but helps the sector to reduce costs and lower its impact on the environment.