Annual performance scorecard for 2019–2020 (year 2)
Introduction
Every five years, Barwon Water develops a Price Submission, a five-year plan which outlines our proposed water and sewerage prices, service standards, infrastructure and operational investments from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2023.
The plan was developed in partnership with our customers and community following 18 months of community conversation and is our commitment to delivering greater value for our customers.
As part of our Price Submission, we committed to:
- continually involve our customers and community in our decision making
- hold ourselves to account and honour what we said we would deliver
- regular ‘check-ins’ with our customers and community to ensure their values are aligned with our service,
- ensuring our actions align with what our customers want us to do.
During 2019-2020, we worked towards delivering five service outcomes our customers told us they most valued and expected from their water and sewerage services:
- Outcome 1: A reliable, secure water future for our region
- Outcome 2: Timely, innovative services for our customers
- Outcome 3: A healthier environment for all
- Outcome 4: Deeper knowledge and partnerships with our community
- Outcome 5: Affordability for all our customers
Our year 2 annual performance scorecard provides a snapshot of our performance against these outcomes.
With our customers in mind, we set ambitious targets for ourselves and in 2019–2020 we met three of our outcomes and are on track to deliver the remaining two by the end of the regulatory period (30 June 2023). This was against the backdrop of a hotter and drier climate that put extra pressure on delivering water and sewerage services.
The year was also marked by the unprecedented challenges of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We responded quickly to ensure we continued to provide our essential water and sewerage services, while maintaining the health and safety of our staff and customers. We also worked hard to ensure there was appropriate support and flexibility options for our residential and business customers financially impacted by coronavirus.
Essential Services Commission outcomes reporting
The Essential Services Commission (ESC) regulates the Victorian water sector and they also monitor and require us to report on our performance against measures for each customer outcome.
The table below summarises our overall performance over the current pricing period to date using a traffic light system for each outcome, with an overall green rating in both years.
| Outcome | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. A reliable, secure water future for our region | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| 2. Timely, innovative services for our customers | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| 3. A healthier environment for all | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| 4. Deeper knowledge and partnerships with our community | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| 5. Affordability for all of our customers | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Overall | ⬤ | ⬤ |
Each outcome below is made up of a number of indicators and our performance for each measure is summarised using the traffic light system similar to the table above.
The ESC uses the same methodology in tracking our performance and full details are available on the ESC website which highlight our targets, results and detailed commentary.
Our promise
We will provide clean, safe drinking water, treat wastewater in a compliant manner, encourage greater use of recycled water and maintain secure water supplies.
Our challenges
The Barwon region is experiencing an increasingly warmer and drier climate, and since 1996, we have seen a 30% reduction in surface water inflows.
The region has also been growing at a higher rate than anticipated by most forecasters, at a rate of more than 2% per annum in terms of the number of households and population. This has resulted in higher demand for our services.
All of these factors have resulted in the need to invest and utilise other reliable, water sources, such as the Melbourne to Geelong pipeline (MGP) and Anglesea borefield. Our decision in 2019 to not renew the licence for the Barwon Downs borefield to focus wholly on remediation of the confirmed impacts from historic management of ground water pumping and rebuild trust with the local community, has also meant the timing of our next water supply upgrade could be as early as 2029.
Our achievements
In 2019–2020 we launched the Water for our Future program to collaborate with our customers and community to co-design our next Urban Water Strategy and a new water future for our region.
We also completed the Lovely Banks to Montpelier pump station, extending the service area of the MGP and increasing its rate of delivery from 7 to 16 gigalitres (GL) per year, nearly half of the greater Geelong region’s annual water demand.
Our goal to produce zero waste by 2030 reached another milestone with Class A recycled water now flowing through purple pipes to homes in Armstrong Creek and parts of Torquay, Mount Duneed and Charlemont.
We started supplying Class A recycled water for non-drinking purposes to more than 6,000 homes in these areas via a dedicated ‘purple pipe’ network in December. Switching on Class A recycled water to these customers will save nearly 500 megalitres (ML), or more than 1% of the total annual water demand for the Geelong region. Visit our recycled water page for more information.
The table below summarises our performance against indicators for this outcome.
| Outcome | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Volume of recycled water allocated for productive use by 2022-23 | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Number of non-compliances with EPA License conditions | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Number of Safe Drinking Water Act non-compliances (water sampling and audit) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Number of non-compliances with bulk entitlement and licence conditions | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Percentage of time water restrictions are in place | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Overall | ⬤ | ⬤ |
Our focus areas
During 2019–2020 we experienced three instances of non-compliance with Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) licence parameters, resulting in not meeting our target of ‘zero’. The non-compliances had no adverse impacts on customers or the environment. They included a process failure that led to the offsite discharge of some partially treated wastewater, and the offsite discharge of some Class B water when transferring it to a customer. Full details are outlined in the outcomes performance report on the ESC website.
The highest level of quality is one of our core objectives, and we will work to ensure that this indicator is met in the future.
Highlight: Water for our FutureDuring year 2 we partnered with our community and regional leaders in starting to design a new water future for our region. Through ‘Water for our Future’, we are drawing on the insights, experiences and ideas of our customers and community to help us create a water future that will support liveable and thriving communities and a healthy environment for years to come. Through this process, we have already heard from more than 3,000 people about what they value most about water and their ideas for managing future water supply and demand. We have also actively engaged with our regional stakeholders including the five G21 Councils and businesses and community groups via a regional leaders forum in December 2019. At the same time as engaging with stakeholders and the community, we have been undertaking the necessary strategic technical and financial planning to carefully prepare for any future augmentation, including driving down debt and absorbing tax to best position us to invest in new infrastructure if, and when required. We’ve also looked at every opportunity to potentially delay the need for costly augmentation through reducing leaks and losses from our system using new technologies such as smart network sensors, as well as water efficiency programs. In response to the challenges associated with the global coronavirus pandemic, which impacted our ability to engage face-to-face with the community and key stakeholders, key engagement dates have been revised, demonstrating our ability to be agile and adaptive. This has meant redesigning community workshops to be held online, and rescheduling and the first meeting of our deliberative community panel from May 2020 to October 2020. We also postponed the supporting quantitative customer research until September 2020. Nevertheless, we are on track to deliver each of the phases of this cutting-edge program. We will set out the actions we will take in response to the community’s recommendations in a draft 2022 Urban Water Strategy, which will be published late 2021.
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Our promise
We will use technology to ensure our customer experience is second-to-none and the level of customer choice is enhanced. We will provide a positive service experience for our customers and be easy to deal with.
Our challenges
Along with many of our customers, we had to respond to the significant immediate challenge of the global coronavirus pandemic, while ensuring we continued to provide essential water and sewerage services while maintaining the health and safety of our staff and customers. The importance of the role we play in our region by providing our essential service was more critical than ever.
To enable this to occur, we quickly established a dedicated Pandemic Incident Management and Crisis Management teams to oversee and drive our proactive and deliberate response across all areas of operations, customer service, people management, safety, health and wellbeing, technology, contractor management, procurement and more.
We implemented new ways of working and introduced strong health and safety controls, utilising technology to provide minimal impact to customer service. Within the space of a few weeks, we transformed how we worked with more than 300 staff operating from home and still delivering exceptional results.
Staff on the front line continue to attend to essential maintenance and repairs, and our treatment plants are operating to ensure our customers have access to clean and safe water. Our customer team is helping increased numbers of people experiencing financial hardship, while our strategy and planning teams are safeguarding our water security for years to come.
The growth in our region has also meant a sharp increase for the demand of our services, while customer and community expectation for communication and engagement is at its highest.
Our achievements
In 2019–2020 we’re proud to have progressed our Customer Experience (CX) transformation program which has included a commitment from all staff to “I care, we care” across all customer touchpoints, a new ‘voice of customer’ insights program aimed at better listening and responding to customer feedback, improved communication and processes for planned and unplanned outages, increased use of e-billing and SMS alerts, and significantly increased support for customers experiencing hardship.
We also continued to improve call handling and first point resolution and were very proud to have been ranked for the second consecutive year the number-one Victorian water corporation and number-two nationally in the Customer Service Benchmarking Australia’s “SenseX Call handling” benchmarking.
During 2019-20 we also commenced investigation and planning to pilot innovative new “Smart Networks” technology to predict and prevent faults and water loss before they occur.
We continued to grow our wholly owned subsidiary company, Barwon Asset Solutions (BAS) with profits returned to Barwon Water to keep customer prices low. BAS provides high quality and proactive asset management services and solutions to us and other clients in the South-West region of Victoria.
Our Customer Advisory Committee, which is a diverse representative group of customers from across our region, met quarterly throughout 2019–2020. At these forums members provide feedback on a range of topics including customer experience, hardship support, our collections processes, Strategy 2030 and price commitments.
The table below summarises our performance against indicators for this outcome.
| Outcome | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Number of customers who receive e-billing | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Modify customer survey to capture first-point-resolution rate through the Customer Centre and collect initial data to set a target | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Customers who are able to receive communications via SMS | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Customer ‘ease of doing business’ with Barwon Water (survey respondents giving 9 or 10 out of 10) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Customers who have an unplanned water supply interruption have their water back on within 5 hours | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Customers who have a planned water supply interruption have their water back on within 5 hours | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Number of customers who have more than five unplanned water supply interruptions in the year | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Number of customers who have more than two sewer spills to their property in a year | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Customer satisfaction with the overall quality of drinking water (survey respondents answering “Satisfied” or “Extremely Satisfied”) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Water quality complaints | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Complaints to Energy Water Ombudsman Victoria | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Overall | ⬤ | ⬤ |
Our focus areas
With many customers experiencing financial hardship at this time due to coronavirus pandemic Barwon Water temporarily suspended third party debt collection in April 2020 and commenced a review of its end to end collections process. Our focus is on better connecting with customers before they reach the debt collection stage to offer support in terms of payment extensions, access to government concessions, hardship grants and other programs to help them through this difficult period.
We have introduced a new outbound call program where we are aiming to make contact with 320 customers a week who have fallen behind in their payments (some for the first time) to offer support.
Highlight: Voice of CustomerOur new Voice of Customer program is helping us monitor and respond to customer feedback across all touchpoints in a timely way. The program sees us gather customer verbatim comments from a variety of sources: phone, email, website, social media and face-to-face interactions. We use this feedback to respond more quickly to issues, understand trends so we can seek to proactively address them and build better relationships with our customers. The Voice of Customer program also helps our staff understand the importance of customer feedback and that ever comment is an insight that can help us improve what we do. In 2019-2020, the first full year of our Voice of Customer program, we gathered and analysed over 3000 verbatim comments from customers which in turn helped us identify and fix problems early for our customers.
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Our promise
We will achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2025 and net zero emissions by 2030. We will reduce resource consumption and waste production through improved efficiency and support waterway and catchment health.
Our challenges
We set ourselves ambitious targets, and recent changes in our operating environment have presented challenges we are focused on to overcome. Increased water demand, combined with a hotter drier climate and reduced rainfalls in recent years, has resulted in the need to utilise more energy intensive water sources. This led to us using 12% more electricity in 2019–2020 than we had anticipated. Not only did this come at a higher cost, it also resulted in more emissions. This will be a focus area for us in 2020–2021.
We’re proud to be part of the Zero Emissions Water (ZEW) power purchase agreement with 13 other Victorian water corporations. However, the start-up of this project was delayed, which has impacted on our emissions results.
Our achievements
Our emissions reduction and renewable energy programs avoided at least 1,888 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) and achieving a number of milestones, including:
- expansion of Black Rock solar farm to 3 megawatts capacity – supplying almost 15% of Barwon Water’s electricity consumption
- switching on the solar array adjacent to our sustainable residential subdivision, Salt Torquay
- Zero Emissions Water (ZEW) and a power purchase agreement involving 13 water corporations to supply up to 30% of Barwon Water’s renewable energy needs. While some delays have occurred, the project is expected to be operational by October 2020
- installation of a 300-kilowatt solar array at the Wurdee Boluc Water Treatment Plant –with our first battery storage installation
- continued transition to electric and hybrid vehicles – hybrid trucks replaced seven existing diesel trucks.
We also continued to focus on water efficiency with a successful summer campaign in Apollo Bay to promote water efficiency.
In partnership with our community, we began implementation of the remediation plan for Boundary Creek and Big Swamp to remediate the impacts from the historic management of groundwater pumping of the Barwon Downs groundwater borefield.
We implemented a river restoration project along a 2.8-kilometre stretch of Dewings Creek and commenced one on a 3-kilometre reach of the East Barwon River, working with nine adjoining land owners.
We continued to implement the monitoring and assessment program for the Anglesea Borefield with involvement and oversight from the Anglesea River working group.
We have a strong relationship with the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority (CCMA) and Victorian Environmental Water Holder (VEWH) and continue to work together to deliver key projects such as environmental flows for the Barwon and Moorabool rivers.
We continued to build strategic partnerships with councils and the Victorian Government to develop integrated water management solutions for sustainable communities.
We explored recycled water use on the Bellarine Peninsula, introduced smart networks to identify leaks and minimise water loss and administered various water conservation programs, including:
- launching our WaterAssist Home program for high water using households to fix leaking appliances and fixtures, resulting in a saving of 2.9 megalitres
- continuing our Schools Water Efficiency Program and launched a grants program to help schools fix water leaks, saving 246 ML of water
- successfully developing our community education program in coastal areas over the summer to help raises awareness about permanent water saving rules and using water efficiently, with more than 560 people in attendance.
The table below summarises our performance against indicators for this outcome.
| Outcome | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Total greenhouse emissions produced (CO₂-e) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Proportion of electricity from renewable sources | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Biosolids mass re-used | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| ‘Unaccounted for’ water | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Development of a tool for tracking of industrial waste recycled from BW operations and collection of initial data – by June 2020, with targets for subsequent years to be established | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Undertake research into water treatment sludge re-use options | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Construct and commission works for waste to energy capture | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Overall | ⬤ | ⬤ |
Our focus areas
Due to the challenges we faced, including the need to use more energy intensive water sources and the delay of the ZEW power purchase agreement, we exceeded our total greenhouse emissions produced (CO2-e) target in 2019-2020.
However, emissions reductions are expected going forward and we remain committed to meeting our targets over the life of our five-year price period and our longer term Strategy 2030.
We have a number of renewable energy projects due to commence operation in coming years, including the Zero Emissions Water power purchase agreement (solar) and Colac Renewable Organics Network (biogas). We are also in the planning phase for a regional Renewable Organics Network (featured below).
Highlight: Australian-first Renewable Organics NetworksDuring year 2 we announced partnerships with six local councils and major export manufacturers on opportunities for two Australian first Renewable Organic Networks. The two Renewable Organics Networks, which leverage existing water and sewerage infrastructure, will transform significant amounts of organic municipal and trade waste into dispatchable renewable energy and value-add agricultural soil enhancers. The projects will create a circular economy for the region’s organic waste, reduce landfill costs for business and councils and reduce water infrastructure energy costs for Barwon Water customers. The Colac project itself will create 5.5 gigawatt hours per yer (GWh/y) renewable energy (equivalent to 1,100 households); reduce gas usage by 21.4 terrajoules per year (TJ/y) (equivalent to 350 households), reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 6,300 tonnes and create 72 construction and ongoing jobs. It will also boost energy production for electricity supply into the local grid and transfer heat via an innovative hot water network to offset gas usage for Australian Lamb Company. |
Our promise
We will proactively seek opportunities for strengthening partnerships with key groups where we have clear mutual interest. We will build two-way community relationships and work collaboratively with our stakeholders and industry.
Our challenges
Our engagement and building of partnerships with key stakeholders and our community is progressing strongly even with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic which has required us to think innovatively about how we use technology for online engagement.
Demonstrating our ability to be agile and adaptive, we revised the dates for the five phases of our Water for our Future project in response to these challenges, which impacted our ability to engage face-to-face with the community and key stakeholders. This meant redesigning some community workshops to be held online. Notwithstanding this, we are on track to deliver each of the phases of this cutting-edge program.
Our achievements
We partnered with Wadawurrung to commence planning on a new 66-hectare community parkland surrounding the aqueduct on the Barwon River. In addition, we completed our first ever Reconciliation Action Plan and started conversations with recently appointed Registered Aboriginal Party, Eastern Maar.
We’re continuing to engage with our customers and community on key strategic projects, for example, sewer relining, Class A recycled water and the Anglesea Borefield, to better understand their views, perceptions and ideas to help us improve what we do.
We worked closely with the five councils in the G21 region to launch Water for our Future and are also partnering with them to explore opportunities for an Australian first Renewable Organics Network.
The submission of the Boundary Creek and Big Swamp remediation and environmental protection plan is underway, which was developed in collaboration with the community and stakeholder working group and community nominated independent technical experts over 18 months. In addition to engaging with the working group, we hosted five information sessions in Winchelsea, Birregurra and Colac to provide the community with updates on the project and an opportunity to ask questions and have input into the process.
We’re also working with Heritage Victoria to ensure the safest and most efficient option in maintaining the heritage-listed Ovoid Sewer Aqueduct in Breakwater. Our application seeks the right balance between the critical safety need to remove spans, safe public access to enjoy the river and 66-hectares of surrounding land, the heritage values of the aqueduct and the cost of any work so customer bills remain affordable.
In June 2020 we undertook our first annual Stakeholder Perception survey which we committed to do in our 2018–2023 price submission. Seventy-five surveys were completed by stakeholders across state and local government, customer support agencies, Traditional Owners, business, community and environmental groups and networks across our service region. We achieved high scores for all questions with an overall satisfaction rating of 84.4%, (above our target of 75%) reflecting a strong and healthy relationship with our strategic stakeholders.
The table below summarises our performance against indicators for this outcome.
| Outcome | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Stakeholder perceptions (large customers / regional stakeholders / strategic partnerships) | n/a | ⬤ |
| Residential per capita water consumption (annual average) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| New community green / open space provided using existing BW land (cumulative total across regulatory period) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Social media engagement (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) – posts served to customers' feeds | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Gender balance in senior leadership team | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Overall | ⬤ | ⬤ |
Our focus areas
We will continue to engage strongly with Traditional Owners to make informed decisions. We will also continue to work closely with our key stakeholders and large customers, as well as Heritage Victoria, to get the best outcomes for our customers and environment.
Highlight: Land back in Aboriginal handsDuring year 2, we finalised the sale of a 54-hectare parcel of land near Ballan to the Wadawurrung (Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation). The landholding, which was no longer required for operational purposes, lays in the heart of Wadawurrung Country at Bostock Reservoir, approximately 30 kilometres east of Ballarat. Bound partly by the east arm of the Moorabool River, the landholding includes a large area of native woodland and a house previously used as the caretaker’s residence. The sale supports key actions we committed to in our Reconciliation Action Plan and Strategy 2030 as well as, like all surplus property sales, helping to keep customers’ water bills low. During 2019–2020, we also signed a partnership agreement with Wadawurrung, setting out how we will work together on key projects over the next three years. The partnership further supports our commitment to creating many meaningful opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as a provider of essential services, an employer of choice and community partner. Our staff value learning from our Traditional Owners about water and land management practice, that are just as relevant today as they have been for tens of thousands of years.
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Our promise
We will work hard to keep our costs down without compromising our services and we will help our customers to manage their bills.
Our challenges
As mentioned in Outcome 1, year 2 saw us need to use more expensive sources of water to meet demand in drier conditions, leading to increased unforeseen costs. However, we are able to mitigate most of these costs through our efficiency program as explained further below.
We are committed to actively reviewing and reprioritising our operational expenditure and capital works program forecasts, along with looking for opportunities to further reduce expenditure.
The coronavirus pandemic has affected our region significantly, and we are doing all we can to support our customers through this challenging period.
Our achievements
Our property consolidation program is performing strongly, with net cash revenue for the financial year totalling $6.3 million. This revenue helps keep customer bills affordable as we deliver our essential water and sewerage services.
Our Customer Affordability Pipeline program is on track to meet its $32 million target over five years. To date we have realised over $13.5 million of efficiencies and other benefits, and the innovative program continues to drive us to identify, investigate and deliver initiatives to sustainably reduce operating expenditures.
We’re implementing several new coronavirus focused outbound contact campaigns, designed to proactively contact customers who may benefit from participation in hardship programs but who have not engaged yet with our support staff.
We are proud to continue to have one of the lowest average residential bills for water businesses with more than 100,000 customers. This includes absorbing in this current price period, the additional costs for alternate water supplies.
We’re also proud of the fact that our operating expenditure productivity rate of 2.3% per annum (excluding inflation) is one of the most ambitious of all Victorian water corporations.
The table below summarises our performance against indicators for this outcome.
| Outcome | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Customers who receive a grant (rebate bill credit) from Arrange and Save payment incentive program. (total per year)* | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Dollar benefit from continuous improvement activities | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Capital works program on budget (± 10% tolerance, $ 2017-2018) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Controllable opex / property ($ 2017-2018) | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Affordability measure – average customer residential bill as percentage of region's median wage | ⬤ | ⬤ |
| Overall | ⬤ | ⬤ |
* It should be noted that this measure has been renamed since our 2018 Price Submission (and the Performance Incentive Mechanism below) where it was called ‘Number of customers engaged and supported through Barwon Water’s hardship payment plans’.
Our focus areas
We will continue to focus on how we can support our customers and community through the coronavirus pandemic. Our efficiency program will continue to be a high priority, ensuring our services remain affordable for our region.
Highlight: Customer supportA highlight for the year has been implementing our new Customer Support Strategy developed in collaboration with support agencies and councils across our region. We have made significant advances across all four key objectives within the strategy which are:
In 2019–2020 Barwon water played a lead role in the development of an Australian First Financial Inclusion Action Plan for the Geelong region. Our dedicated customer ‘pop-ups’ in targeted areas enabled us to talk to customers about the range of Barwon Water support programs on offer, as well as water saving and efficiency, who may not have engaged with us previously. The initiative was a great success, with the team assisting customers to sign up to our home plumbing assessment and ‘arrange and save’ programs, as well as registering new concessions. A particular highlight from one of the pop-ups was helping a customer with literacy challenges in person to complete a ‘utility relief grant scheme’ application on their behalf. The grant is expected to effectively erase this customer’s $600 debt. Another highlight saw a customer assume they were already on concession pricing, as their bills were so low. The team identified the customer was eligible for concession, but it had not been applied, making their bills even lower and delivering a welcome surprise. The emergence of the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the criticality of our Customer Support program. From January to June 2020 the number of hardship grants awarded to customers was more than 20% higher than the same time last year.
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Performance Incentive Mechanism
In our Pricing Submission to the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in 2018 we also included a ‘Performance Incentive Mechanism’ which commits that if we do not meet a four specific performance indicators aligned to our customer outcomes, we will return up to $11.5 million to our customers in the next pricing period (2023–2028) or $2.9 M for each of the four overall measures:
- Zero Waste (Outcome 1)
- Customer Service Index (Outcome 2)
- Network Performance Index (Outcome 2)
- Zero Emissions (Outcome 3)
The value to be returned reflects our ESC Outcomes reporting results and how much targets were exceeded.
The current value ($) forecast to be returned in the next pricing period is $0.1 M.
This is based on our 2018-2019 Network Performance Index result, where we did not meet our target regarding the ‘number of customers who have more than two sewer spills to their property in a year’, due to three consecutive overflows on two adjacent properties in December 2018. Because of this, we will return $96,000 back to customers in the next pricing period.
The other key measure at risk of not being met is the ‘Zero Emissions - Total emissions, reported in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂-e) by 2022/2023’. The interim targets for 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 have not been met. However, the ultimate performance of this measure is based on meeting tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂-e) target by 2022/2023.
Although we are currently behind our interim targets, due to the challenges we have faced including higher than expected growth, needing to use more energy intensive water sources and the delay of the Zero Emission Water (ZEW) power purchase agreement, we remain committed to meeting the target by 2022/2023, and therefore at this stage have forecast a return of $0.
| Measure | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Zero Waste (Outcome 1) Volume of recycled water allocated for productive use by 2022/23 | $0 | $0 |
Customer Service Index (Outcome 2) | $0 | $0 |
Network Performance Index (Outcome 2) | $0.1M | $0 |
| Zero Emissions (Outcome 3) Total emissions, reported in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂-e) by 2022/23 | $0** | $0** |
| Overall | $0.1M | $0.0M |
* It should be noted that this measure has been renamed since our 2018 Price Submission where it was called ‘Number of customers engaged and supported through Barwon Water’s hardship payment plans’.
** this measure tracks our performance over 5 years of this pricing period and the value paid will be finalised at the end of these 5 years.