water surge pricing

Tram

Tram

Tram

Associate
Joined
1 Mar 2025
Posts
74
Location
Cambridge
uk.yahoo.com

Water firms to impose surge pricing during heatwaves

Water companies will use smart meters to increase prices in the summer, meaning customers will pay more during heatwaves.
uk.yahoo.com uk.yahoo.com
“Granular consumption data from smart meters, for example, can support greater innovations in tariffs, including seasonal tariffs and surge pricing,” it said earlier this year."

Just came across this, It getting out of hand now, this could be the norm for everything in the future.
 
Last edited:
Makes sense tbh. What's the point in smart meters if they aren't used for smart things, like demand management? We do the same with electricity.

Personally I don't like it. I prefer a system like rates, which puts the onus on infastructure upgrades rather than demand reduction via penalisation. but I lost that argument.
 
I'm drinking about a gallon of the stuff each day at the moment.

But yes, if they can, they will. I still think people who are not metered are paying more.
 
Wonder how much more water is used these days by so many people now owning a spa
Even the inflatable ones take between 800 to 1200 litres

I used to change the water a lot when i used to have one about 5 years ago
I really miss it on hot days like this, But it just not worth the huge electric bill outlay for them few hot weeks we get per year.
 
Last edited:
Interesting - I'm all for surge/demand led pricing on "optional" things like electricity use (to a point), internet, taxis etc. but financially restricting access to water just seems a bit too dystopian for my liking.

For "luxuries", e.g. pools/washing the car etc. then fine, but the baseline amount would need to be set to a realistic level (with plenty of buffer) to allow people to drink/cook/maintain personal hygiene without needing to worry about their bills.

I've already drunk 3 litres of water today, and that's just sitting around in the house trying to keep cool, for someone who is needing to work outside for example, that's going to be significantly higher.

My concern would be people trying to reduce their bills by not drinking enough, causing health issues and ultimately additional strain on the NHS
 
Haggisman said:
Interesting - I'm all for surge/demand led pricing on "optional" things like electricity use (to a point), internet, taxis etc. but financially restricting access to water just seems a bit too dystopian for my liking.

For "luxuries", e.g. pools/washing the car etc. then fine, but the baseline amount would need to be set to a realistic level (with plenty of buffer) to allow people to drink/cook/maintain personal hygiene without needing to worry about their bills.

I've already drunk 3 litres of water today, and that's just sitting around in the house trying to keep cool, for someone who is needing to work outside for example, that's going to be significantly higher.

My concern would be people trying to reduce their bills by not drinking enough, causing health issues and ultimately additional strain on the NHS
Click to expand...

I've seen the outdoor trades coming into the shops for a ten pack of litre bottles early in the morning to take to work.
It could be a worry for people restricted to home who do need to use a lot of water. However it is better than resorting to tankage and stand pipes as we did fifty years ago (approximately).

Bath with a friend. :D
 
Last edited:
You aren’t going to materially lower your water usage by lowing how much you drink.

If anyone thinks that’s a good idea, they need to go back to primary school to do some math lessons.

For context, water is like £3.50 for 1000l inc sewage charge. About half that if you are on a septic tank. Running a normal shower for about 30 seconds will cover your entire drinking water ‘budget’ for the day twice over and at that point the shower probably isn’t even warm yet.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
You aren’t going to materially lower your water usage by lowing how much you drink.

If anyone thinks that’s a good idea, they need to go back to primary school to do some math lessons.

For context, water is like £3.50 for 1000l inc sewage charge. About half that if you are on a septic tank. Running a normal shower for about 30 seconds will cover your entire drinking water ‘budget’ for the day twice over and at that point the shower probably isn’t even warm yet.
Click to expand...

I realise that and was being flippant a m3 of water weighs a tonne. Surge pricing should really only be effective for excess usage.
 
Something needs to change in terms of water usage and the answer with global warming can’t just be build more reservoirs. Really the whole system needs a reset it is utterly bonkers that people use gallons and gallons of expensively stored cleaned and distributed drinking water to keep the lawn green, the car shiny and wash poo down the toilet! Meters should be compulsory having a fixed charge just encourages iresponsible usage as people don’t see a direct consequence of having three showers a day, washing the four family cars weekly and spraying enough water on the garden to feed a decent paddy field. Grey water systems should be mandatory on all new houses and subsidised by the water companies for older houses. Much like domestic solar these changes are inevitable so why not start the transition now and support people to make the changes early so we can get ahead of the game?
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
You aren’t going to materially lower your water usage by lowing how much you drink.

If anyone thinks that’s a good idea, they need to go back to primary school to do some math lessons.

For context, water is like £3.50 for 1000l inc sewage charge. About half that if you are on a septic tank. Running a normal shower for about 30 seconds will cover your entire drinking water ‘budget’ for the day twice over and at that point the shower probably isn’t even warm yet.
Click to expand...

Yes, but with surge pricing, that L of water at 1pm could cost you the same as 10L at 1am. You can choose to take your shower at a different time of day, but choosing not to drink for hours during the hottest part of the day isn't particularly healthy...
 
We leak around 19% of clean water. E.g., for every litre making it out your tap 190ml is leaked and lost along the way.

According to https://www.datatecnics.com/news/leakage-burst-statistics-you-should-know-in-20205 if we weren't leaking that 19% we could "Supply water to roughly 17.93 million people for a day (the average person uses about 150 litres/day)".

Obviously not wasting water yourself is a good thing, but really water companies need to actually invest in the infrastructure more rather than leaking money (pun intended) to shareholders.
 
Last edited:
Haggisman said:
Yes, but with surge pricing, that L of water at 1pm could cost you the same as 10L at 1am. You can choose to take your shower at a different time of day, but choosing not to drink for hours during the hottest part of the day isn't particularly healthy...
Click to expand...

Who is arguing for this? The argument is that prices rise when there is a drought, not with instantaneous demand.

Water also isn’t electricity where you need to balance instantaneous supply and demand, water is far more flexible because it can be stored in pipes, tanks and in the water pressure itself.

I’d be interested to see more granular hour by hour usage statistics because I wouldn’t expect to see massive peaks like you do electricity. I wouldn’t expect you get millions of people getting home at 5.30pm and all going for a show, because they are trying their best to crash the electricity grid with them all the oven on at the same time.
 
Tom_ed1987 said:
Makes sense tbh. What's the point in smart meters if they aren't used for smart things, like demand management? We do the same with electricity.

Personally I don't like it. I prefer a system like rates, which puts the onus on infastructure upgrades rather than demand reduction via penalisation. but I lost that argument.
Click to expand...

Up to a point but it'll probably go like so many things lately, private companies, often foreign, acquiring the utilities and then a constant ramp of pricing squeezing out people's hard earned money - you'll get a bit less than the bare minimum and make do or pay through the nose for what should be reasonable usage, never mind people whose usage is excessive.

Look at what is happening with stuff like vets, dentistry, etc. in this country.

Like StriderX said I don't know why people are so passive about it.
 
Haggisman said:
You can choose to take your shower at a different time of day, but choosing not to drink for hours during the hottest part of the day isn't particularly healthy...
Click to expand...
Are you incapable of filling a jug or two during the cheap times and putting them in the fridge?

Pho said:
Obviously not wasting water yourself is a good thing, but really water companies need to actually invest in the infrastructure more rather than leaking money (pun intended) to shareholders.
Click to expand...
Water companies fix on average 200 leaks per day. They're already fixing so many that they have to outsource the work because they don't have enough staff.
The leaks are mostly a result of ground movement and surface works - So unless you can stop the Earth from doing what it does, stop traffic from impacting the roads and stop people from building stuff, the leaks will continue.... and while you're at it, remind people that if they want water, they have to allow the building of reservoirs.
 
I honestly don't understand how any government could rationalise a system whereby people could deny the building of reservoirs, if they're needed and they clearly are then they should be built with any nimby complainer told they will lose the right to fair market prices for their assets if they persist.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom