Thames Water

Thames Water, which made a £398m half-year profit and was criticised for its performance by Ofwat, raises prospect of widespread outages.

Thames Water, which is owned by a collection of predominantly overseas pension and sovereign wealth funds, said in its consultation that it had “scoped out the possibility of building additional [desalination] plants” but highlighted that it is “an energy-intensive technology”. The hosepipe ban, which meant people living in London and surrounding areas risked £1,000 fines, was also implemented despite the company investing £250m in a desalination plant in the Thames estuary. Desalination plants are used extensively in hotter climates such as the Middle East. “Even after reducing leakage and water usage across our region, we will still need an extra one billion litres of water every day for customers by 2075 to accommodate climate change and population growth. The crisis has become so acute that water companies are now offering households incentives to use less water. Restrictions like this could last for several weeks.”