A chance for a fundamental rethink on water utilities

摘要

I was talking to a consultant advising a major greenfield utilities project in the Gulf recently. Their project involves setting up the groundwork for a utility serving one of the new independent developments that are springing up around the region. There are more and more of these opportunities to get in on the ground floor of utility planning popping up around the region, whether it's serving industrial clients in business parks or industrial zones, or more 'soft' commercial developments where utility services are part of the process of setting up the area for development. The reason new developments might look for an independent utility set-up rather than connecting to an existing network is partly because municipal utilities are having to zero in on their domestic customers in tough financial times, and partly because commercially based communities often come with higher expectations of quality than municipal services can supply.