“We have one resource and three parties constantly disputing over it – these are the agricultural industry, potable water consumers (WSS sector) and the industry. It is very important that these three parties cooperate with each other instead of disputing. This will bring not only added value but also a risk decrease, reasonable use of the valuable resource, optimization of a lot of expenses and opportunities for growth“, Arnaud Valleteau, the Executive Director of Sofiyska Voda, said at the conference “WSS solutions for industry – new business models and technologies“.
Valleteau highlighted that according to a survey of the World Economic Forum for risk assessment, the water resource is the highest values for potential crises. “They are like a time bomb on which we sit and efforts should be made and a solution should be found“.
“The sustainable management of the water resource is implemented in three main directions – fight against its wastage, fight against its pollution, and regulation for the resource – price calculation, optimization of the costs for assets and incentives. In Bulgaria, one of the most sensitive topics, especially in the WSS sector, is the water losses on the network. To date in Bulgaria around 60% of the water or almost 500 M m3 of water is lost per year. In this sense Sofiyska Voda achieved a lot – for five years, from 2010 to 2016, we saved 56 M m3 of water from nature.
The investments are extremely important because only the WSS network in Sofia is 5,500 km long. This requires considerable resources for maintenance and improvement, including of the energy most efficient wastewater treatment plant in the entire Group of Veolia – the one in Kubratovo. In the coming five years Sofiyska Voda will invest more than BGN 200 M in the WSS network in Sofia“, the Executive Director of Sofiyska Voda stated firmly.
Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Nikolay Nankov, Minister of Energy and Water Neno Dimov, and business representatives participated in the conference organized by Capital newspaper.
The shortage of qualified personnel was identified as a major problem faced by the WSS sector. The participants agreed on the statement that at this stage the sector is unattractive for the young people and measures should be taken.
Arnaud Valleteau highlighted that legislative initiatives were required to stimulate the implementation of innovation and offer better material conditions for attracting quality staff in the sector.
Pavel Marinkov from Veolia Energy Bulgaria presented at the forum the advantages of the outsourcing of energy services. Marinkov gave examples for reduction of costs and formation of added value from Germany, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Great Britain.
