Thames Water has admitted it has failed to install a single smart water meter under a flagship £70m programme to fit hundreds of thousands of the devices to support the UK’s “green economic recovery” from Covid-19.
The company has told regulators and investors that it is yet to begin installing the 204,700 smart water meters promised in the Thames Valley region, which are due to be fitted by the end of March 2025.
In July 2021, the industry regulator, Ofwat, gave the green light to water companies to invest £2.7bn, which could later be recovered through bills, on accelerating a series of projects to “build back greener from the pandemic”, including new bathing rivers and efforts to protect habitats. Thames was earmarked £71.9m under the plan to roll out smart meters in the Thames Valley.
Regulators hope that the installation of smart water meters will help households watch their consumption more closely, cutting their usage and reducing the strain on England’s leaky water systems. They also help companies identify leaks more quickly.
However, in its annual performance report, Thames Water said: “Our green economic recovery (GER) programme focuses on the installation of 204,700 additional smart meters … including new household meter installations in the Thames Valley region, the replacement of existing basic non-household meters and the installation of bulk meters.
“There has been no delivery on the programme in 2022/23, although £1.062m has been spent on preparatory work for meter installations.”
It is understood that more than 200,000 pre-installation surveys have been carried out – identifying which types of work were needed – and 9,000 digs done to prepare for future meter fitting.
Although Thames has yet to install any meters under the GER programme, it has installed more than 900,000 outside the scheme.
The company is struggling under £14bn of debt, and it emerged in June that officials were drawing up contingency plans in case it needed to be temporarily renationalised. It announced earlier this month that it had secured £750m of funding from existing investors on top of £500m received earlier this year, but still needed a further £2.5bn to improve its infrastructure and cut its debt pile.
On Friday, the rating agency Moody’s downgraded Thames Water from B1 to B2 amid ongoing concerns about whether the current run of equity injections will be enough to stabilise its credit quality.
It warned a further cut could be on the way, should Ofwat impose a “dividend block” on Thames in response to its finances and growing criticism of the company’s dumping of raw sewage overflows into waterways.
Thames is one of five water companies with legal powers to fit meters. Consumers’ water bills, which are already rising, can go up or down after their installation. Unmetered customers in England and Wales are billed a fixed amount each year based on the rateable value of their property.
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Thames has reassessed the GER programme to focus on areas hit by drought during extreme weather conditions.
It said in its report that it was “engaging with Ofwat to consider removal of the linkage” between the delivery of the smart meter plan and leakage targets. If Thames misses these targets, it will not be able to recover the cost of the programme under current rules.
The company, which reported its worst year for leaks in five years last year said it did not expect to hit the targets as “extremely challenging” weather had knocked its progress off course.
Some meters in areas defined as “water stressed” have been fitted without telling households.
The new co-chief executive of Thames, the former Ofwat boss Cathryn Ross, said earlier this month that the company was considering using smart meters to charge households with bigger gardens more in order to curb the use of hosepipes.
Thames Water said installations under the GER programme were due to start “soon”, adding: “The south-east of England is a water stressed region and we need to act now to protect our future resources. We have legal powers to fit water meters at all properties in our region.”