Consultation on Northern Ireland Water’s allowed revenue for the PC21 Price Control extension year

We have published our proposals for NI Water’s 2027/2028 allowed revenue and price limits. 

NI Water’s current price control, PC21, was set to run for a six-year period from April 2021 until March 2027. PC21 has since been extended for a further year to allow stakeholders more time to prepare for and develop the next price control.

As a result, we are required to set the price limits for NI Water for the extension year, based on our determination of allowed revenue. Our proposals are primarily based on a roll-forward of the allowance set for the original final year of PC21 (2026/2027). We consider this approach to be appropriate, as undertaking a detailed line-by-line cost review would undermine the intended purpose of keeping the extension as simple as possible.

However, NI Water requested adjustments to its allowed revenue in certain cost areas where it considers it has been disadvantaged by the extension of the price control. This mainly impacts the allowed revenue for interest payments on its capital financing requirements. 

We propose to accept NI Water’s adjustments as we consider they are consistent with the PC21 determination approach and only reflect updates to the interest rate and inflation data used at that time.

We have updated the NI Water financial model with these adjustments. This provides a total of £693 million (nominal) in allowed revenue for the 2027/2028 year, and overall price limits K adjustment factor of 3.4% in real terms (before inflation).

We are consulting on these proposals, and we would encourage you to make your views known to us. It is important that we are provided with a range of responses that will help us deliver the most robust and informed decisions for the PC21 price control extension.

Following our review of the consultation responses, we plan to publish our decision on NI Water’s 2027/2028 allowed revenue and price limits in August 2026. 

Responses should be received on or before 5pm on Friday 24 July and should be emailed to

Email: uregni_water_responses@uregni.gov.uk with cc to dwayne.boyle@uregni.gov.uk 

Our preference would be for responses to be submitted by email.

Additional information:

• Your response may be made public by the Utility Regulator. If you do not want all or part of your response or name made public, please state this clearly in the response by marking your response as ‘CONFIDENTIAL’.
• If you want other information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this, it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential.

• Information provided in response to this consultation, including personal information, may be subject to publication or disclosure in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

• As stated in the GDPR Privacy Statement for consumers and stakeholders, any personal data contained within your response will be deleted once the matter being consulted on has been concluded, though the substance of the response may be retained. 

• Copies of all documents can be made available in large print, Braille, audio cassette and a variety of relevant minority languages if required.