The year just gone saw many challenges for Melbourne’s Water industry. We are now in the eleventh year of drought and water storages fell to historic lows. Decisions have been made by government to augment traditional supplies with a desalination plant and the sharing of benefits and investment in irrigation efficiencies from the Goulburn River. Delivering these projects is very high priority for the government and the water industry, in particular Melbourne Water.
For the whole year, stage 3a restrictions have been in place and we at City West Water are continuing our focus on helping our residential and non-residential customers to save water. We are very proud of the result from these efforts. Melbourne overall has reduced per capita water usage by 36%, and City West customers have reduced their per capita usage by a magnificent 43%.
There has been excellent take-up of our free showerhead exchange offer by residential customers. Every one of our 461 non-residential customers who use greater than 10 million litres of water per annum has prepared a water management plan (waterMAP). Our cleaner production team keeps coming up with great new programs such as Woking the Way to Water Savings, which is a water-saving program specifically for Asian restaurants throughout the CBD and western suburbs of Melbourne.
We have also put a lot of effort into continuing to drive down unaccounted for water. Last year’s result was an unprecedented low of 8.4% against a target of 10.7% and reduced losses by 1.4 billion litres compared to the previous year.
Another highlight was achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions for the second year in a row, and our Altona Treatment Plant met 100% compliance with its EPA licence.
Despite lower than budgeted water sales, the company exceeded its profit before tax target. A number of factors contributed to this, notably lower operational expenditure.
Melbourne’s retail water industry was reviewed during the year by the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission, at the request of government. Water prices are projected to increase significantly, up to double in real terms over the next five years, and the government wanted to be sure that the retail structure was as efficient as it could be. The present structure of three retailers was confirmed, and VCEC made a number of recommendations for improvements in how we manage the industry. These will be put in place over the next two years.
City West Water has also set itself some challenges for the upcoming year. We will be looking for innovative ways to take the next leap forward in delivering our vision to be a truly sustainable water business. We will continue to work with our customers and our community to make further progress towards this vision.