Expensive?
Over the last 30+ years of my career in the water industry I have often come across the comment "that is too expensive". I have even used it myself. This could have been for an NRW project, a consultancy service, or technology.
I decided to look up the official meaning of expensive and here is what the Webster's dictionary had to say:
"Commanding a high price and especially one that is not based on intrinsic worth"
Recently while working on NRW projects in areas with high water supply costs, very little in the way of realistic or cost effective alternative supply options and high rates of rise of water loss in a "do nothing scenario", I reviewed some NRW reduction solutions that had been quoted as "expensive".
Not the case in the context of those projects, while the cost was high, the cost to do nothing was much higher. The high cost solution brought measurable results, and a higher NPV over a guaranteed time frame than other lower cost solutions.
I believe that before we class a potential solution as "expensive" we need to understand the context and look at the value proposition.
It may be that given the context the solution is expensive and we can seek another - however it may also be that we are surprised and that even though the solution cost is high, the cost of a lower priced solution or doing nothing is even higher!
Owner and Senior Consultant at Thornton International - Reducing water losses - Increasing Efficiency
7 年Marco thanks for your comments . In my experience the energy costs vary greatly between gravity fed systems and pumped systems. For those utilities with pumped systems we can often reduce water loss and energy consumption by efficient pumping, efficient pumps and efficient pressure management. Any efforts to do this should be done based on a validated business case. Many of the cases I have seen have very fast paybacks .
Accenture @ Utilities & Infraestrutura | CEO | Board Member | Vice Presidente | Diretor Presidente | Diretor Executivo | C-Level
7 年There are a lot of technologies to prevent water loss. But, the magical number of 30% or 40% can, really, be compared to the cost of energy on a water utilities company ? We know that 25% to 30% of the total costs of potable water is in Energy. What can we be done for reduce them ?
Owner and Senior Consultant at Thornton International - Reducing water losses - Increasing Efficiency
9 年Does anybody know if water loss control was brought up in the recent White House debate on water innovation - and if it did how the cost benefit ranks with the other options mentioned in the article circulated today
Owner and Senior Consultant at Thornton International - Reducing water losses - Increasing Efficiency
9 年Could it be that it is under priced as the real cost of the infrastructure to clean and transport water to our homes in different contexts around the world is not fully understood? If that is the case it may be one of the reasons why some value proposition s are classed as expensive