The Managing Director of Guernsey Water has said that by using its newly refurbished water treatment works in St Saviour’s in a more efficient way it can save around £150,000 next year.
It comes as the utility announces an increase in costs, with the average combined water and wastewater bills for customers rising by around 9% annually.
You can read more about the increases HERE, along with how the money will be used to fund part of a £130 million investment into the island’s water infrastructure, planned for the next 12 years.
Steve Langlois, the MD of the utility company, said it will be cutting costs from the annual budget for next year to help with the investment.
“Guernsey Water needs to do more [investment in infrastructure], but we’re also striving to do more for less where we can, and that’s why we have taken £355,000 of costs out of our budget for next year, and we’re expecting to make efficiencies by running our Water Treatment and works in a different way.”
He added that Guernsey Water “can do that more efficiently”, and continued to state that the company expects “to save around 150,000 from that next year.”
It comes following the £3m refurbishment of the St Saviour’s Water Treatment plant, which began back in 2022.
“After the refurbishment of St Saviour’s, we are able to turn off one of our water treatment works for part of the year, during the winter when demand is lower,” said Mr Langlois.
“That’s really important, because it enables us to carry out maintenance on one of our water treatment works at any one point in time, whilst the other two do the work to supply the island, but it also reduces our running costs.
“Now we have reliable water treatment at St Saviour’s. We believe that we can turn off one of the water treatment works for a longer period during the year.”