| Sustainability
about 19% of utilities’ transmission lines face high unmitigated wildfire exposure by 2050. Water stress is also a serious threat for all the utilities in the analysis, with water-intensive assets like power plants especially vulnerable in the absence of adaptation. By 2050, the currently muted risks from rising sea levels, flooding, and heat and cold waves grow more acute. The report gives credit to US utility companies, who they say manage large and complex networks and are making massive investments to strengthen and upgrade assets to withstand the increasingly extreme and variable climate. However, to protect their assets as well as maintain security of supply, the authors believe US utilities will benefit from a clearer understanding of acute and chronic physical climate risks and better foresight, using enhanced climate analytics, about when and where they will occur. Indeed, climate projections suggest that all US
regions will be affected by climate change to some degree, with impacts varying by geographic location and time. While flood risk is projected to increase by the end of the century, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, water stress and drought risk are expected to impact central states and the region of the Southern Great Plains. While average temperatures are projected to increase across the US. Furthermore, extreme event attribution science shows that the majority (70% of 405 such events in the last 20 years) have been made worse or more likely by climate change. “Even though US utilities have made progress
in recent years, including a focus on sustainability reporting, they may not be sufficiently prepared for what the future may hold,” the report warns, citing recent research that cautions that most US electric utilities do not undertake climate change risk and vulnerability assessments. Reasons for the utilities not undertaking such assessments included questions about the uncertainty surrounding different climate hazards, including the precise timing and crystallisation of impacts, as well as a lack of data. However, S&P states that detailed studies like these
“serve to bring clarity to the changing frequency and severity of climate hazards and their impacts... and may help utilities plan for and build resilience to more extreme weather events and long-term climate change”. There are also suggestions that that US utilities have in some cases been slow to respond to the threats posed by physical climate risks. S&P warns this may leave companies exposed to a $500 billion resilience investment gap that could increase in the absence of concerted action. The report states that: “We believe most utilities we
rate are well aware of these challenges, and they are adapting strategies and investments to better position themselves for a future that is likely to feature more pressure from the physical risk factors outlined in this paper. While progress has been made to improve the resilience of US utilities to the physical impacts of climate change, more work is needed.” At the same time, it states that utility companies
require better data to help inform business continuity management processes and risk assessments. Enhanced climate risk analytics can help provide greater transparency for market participants to identify and analyse potential longer-term risks and facilitate
www.waterpowermagazine.com | December 2021 | 17
a dialogue with rated entities that are potentially exposed. Increased transparency surrounding these risks also presents an opportunity for issuers to demonstrate the benefits of existing or planned adaptations. “This exploratory physical climate risk analysis,” the
report concludes “which is cognisant of the inherent natural uncertainties associated with climate science, has the potential to provide greater insight regarding rated U.S. utilities’ potential exposure to physical climate risks and how companies have adapted or plan to adapt to current and future climate physical risk.”
Solutions by Nature A new joint venture between Binnies and Salix
has launched Solutions By Nature. This will offer the UK water market a whole-life-cycle approach to developing catchment-based blue-green infrastructure solutions that can be created by using natural processes and materials, including peatland restoration, green infrastructure, river restoration and integrated constructed wetlands.
Quantifiable analysis of performance using digital
monitoring will help clients meet their sustainability, biodiversity, carbon and economic targets, while achieving wider societal benefits, including enhancing recreational areas for community wellbeing and wildlife. This new partnership combines knowledge,
processes, specialist machinery and the largest and most diverse nursery infrastructure in the UK, producing over two million plants annually representing 200 native species, to create resilience in the environment naturally.
“Binnies has, for over 100 years, been at the
forefront of planning, designing, constructing and commissioning new and innovative treatment processes for the benefit of our water industry clients and it is exciting to be continuing to do this in a joint f
Below: Teesta-V dam on the Teesta River in Sikkim state, India won the IHA’s Blue Planet prize for 2021
Bottom left: Holding the IHA Blue Planet Prize for Teesta-V - A.K. Singh, Chairman and Managing Director (centre left) with senior management
Above: Hydroelectric power station in Iceland. Hydropower is paying a crucial role in the country’s goal of being fully independent of fossil fuels by 2050
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