Review of recycled water prices for public water utilities

IPART has completed its review of pricing arrangements for recycled water and related services for Sydney Water, Hunter Water, the Central Coast Council and Essential Energy (in Broken Hill).

We have released a Final Report setting out our updated pricing arrangements, as well as making a determination for recycled water developer charges.

Our Final Report also responds to recommendations from Infrastructure NSW’s review of regulatory barriers to cost-effective water recycling, released in January 2019.

The urban water market in NSW has evolved since the last review of our recycled water pricing arrangements in 2006. Our price regulation needs to support efficient and effective water services that draw from dams, the desalination plant and recycled water plants as appropriate.

We have refined our regulatory approach to support efficient investment in recycled water and related services, including where it provides broader benefits to customers, while also protecting customers from any monopoly power of the public water utilities.

We have followed IPART’s established process in conducting this review. We released an Issues Paper in September 2018 for public consultation, followed by a Public Hearing in December 2018. We then released a Draft Report and Draft Determination in April 2019 for further public consultation.

In making our final decisions, we have considered all stakeholder submissions.