Anglian Water Demand Response Case Study

Anglian Water, one of the UK’s largest utility providers, operates a vast and complex network of infrastructure — and like many in the sector, they’ve faced mounting pressure from both rising energy costs and increasingly strict sustainability targets.

To stay ahead, they partnered with Enel X to rethink how energy is managed across the business.

For a utility under tight regulatory controls, boosting margins isn’t as simple as adjusting prices. Anglian Water needed a smarter way to cut waste, uncover savings, and improve reporting — all without disrupting essential services.

At the same time, sustainability has become a core business priority. The utility has already earned the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for its leadership in this area, but meeting future carbon reduction goals would require better visibility into their energy use, and stronger tools to manage it.

They needed a system that could offer data-driven decision-making, automated billing analysis, and the ability to generate new value from existing infrastructure.

With Enel X, Anglian Water began centralising energy data across thousands of sites, gaining insights that helped them flag inefficiencies, eliminate billing errors, and spot opportunities that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed; one of the many examples are the billing issues found in 10–15% of a £9.75M annual energy spend.

The partnership didn’t stop there — they also explored ways to monetise operational flexibility through participation in demand-side energy markets, turning what used to be an overhead into a potential revenue stream.

The impact was both immediate and long-term. Anglian Water was able to streamline operations, improve internal visibility, and shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive energy management. One example is the £3.2 million in savings identified in a single year!

And while the financial wins are impressive, the real story is about resilience: how a traditional utility embraced new ways of thinking to future-proof its operations.

But just take our word for it:

“Experienced partners like Enel X are one more set of eyes and ears to help beat our regulatory targets and save money for the customer and shareholder. But it’s not every day your partner pays you as part of that service.”

— Tom Lee, Energy Contract and Information Manager, Anglian Water

This is just the outline. The full case study covers:

• How Enel X helped scale energy management across thousands of sites
• The strategy behind their grid flexibility participation
• Insights that helped them align with carbon reduction and compliance goals
• What made this collaboration a repeatable model for success