One of our largest supply interruption events was caused by a third party who damaged three of our mains.
Developed at our 2017 Innovation Festival, it sees existing data on underground pipes and cables brought together in one single, digital map to display where electricity and phone cables, and water and gas pipes are buried. We were extremely proud to see this being launched by the Geospatial Commission in April 2023, initially covering North East England, Wales and London ahead of a national roll out over the next two years.
The estimated total monetised benefit of the NUAR programme is £3.4bn, which is £347m per year over ten years. This is based on three estimated benefits:
- Savings from reduced utility strikes, saving £240m/year.
- Reduced costs of sharing data, saving £91m/ year.
- On-site efficiency improvements for projects, saving £16m/year.
A widely reported industry statistic of 60,000 strikes per year on buried service pipes and cables per year was used as the basis of the strike reduction benefits. The economic costs of utility strikes alone are therefore estimated at £2.4bn a year.