Onsite renewables and EVs: Anglian Water outlines net-zero routemap for 2030

Anglian Water will also develop an offsetting strategy for residual emissions by planting 50 hectares of woodland on its sites

Anglian Water has a commitment to become a net-zero business by 2030, made under a sector-wide pledge also signed by the likes of United Utilities and Yorkshire Water.

Under this goal, Anglian has committed to reducing capital carbon emissions by 65% from a 2010 baseline and operational emissions by 30% compared to 2018 levels. The firm has reduced operational emissions by 35% between 2010 and 2020 and capital or embodied carbon by 58% within the same timeframe, by focusing on these areas.

The new routemap details that Anglian Water will install up to 240 GWh of solar generation on and around its own sites and implementing energy efficiency measures reducing power demand by 58GWhs per year and will procure green electricity for all remaining grid requirements.

The water company will also decarbonise its business fleet by replacing 90% of small vehicles with EVs and switching medium-sized vehicles to hydrogen or alternative fuels such as biomethane. More than half of the company’s HGV fleet will switch to using Liquefied Natural Gas.

Biogas production will also be upgraded so it can be exported to the grid or used for transport fuel or to decarbonise other sectors. Monitoring equipment will be installed at four large sites to gain a better understanding on how to tackle process emissions, which Anglian claims are the sector’s most difficult carbon challenge to resolve.

All of the company’s gas oil demand will be switched to hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVOs) and plans will be developed to maximise the opportunities to use hydrogen across operations.

Anglian Water will also develop an offsetting strategy for residual emissions by planting 50 hectares of woodland on its sites, exploring removal opportunities using wetlands, marshes and grasslands and working with landowners to develop land management schemes that avoid and remove emissions.

The company’s chief executive Peter Simpson said: “We are accelerating our progress to net-zero and setting out the pathway that will get us there by 2030, based on our three-step hierarchy of reducing emissions, decarbonising our electricity supply and removing or offsetting our residual emissions.

“It won’t be easy – in fact, it will be incredibly challenging and we don’t have all the answers. Finding and delivering them is going to take sustained and genuinely collaborative efforts throughout the coming years, not just from us but from our supply chain, our peers, from government and from regulators too.”

The company believes these measures will deliver annual carbon reductions so that, by 2030, operational emissions will have been reduced by 70% compared to 2018 levels – a reduction of more than 250,000 tonnes.

Last month, Anglian Water unveiled its first sustainability-linked bond framework, worth £250m, that will enable investment into low-carbon initiatives and projects that improve climate resilience across the areas where it operates.

The new bond framework will assist performance against the company’s interim carbon targets to reduce capital-based carbon emissions by 65% from a 2010 baseline and operational emissions by 30% from 2019 levels by 2025. It will also unlock investment into schemes that improve climate resiliency across the east of England.

Matt Mace