How Wales & West Utilities uses AIM in strategic planning for long-term gas network resilience.

Client:

Wales & West Utilities

Location:

Wales and South West England

Consulting Partner:

ICS Consulting, supported by Probit

Asset Types:

Gas mains, local transmission, above-ground plant, RepEx Iron mains programme assets

AIM Version Used:

AIM 3.6

Key Outcome:

Fully regulator-approved investment model, delivering faster NARMS reporting and optimised asset planning across GD2 & GD3

Wales & West Utilities (WWU) is a major gas distribution network operator, delivering gas to 2.5 million homes and businesses across one-sixth of the UK, covering Wales and the South West of England.

With over 35,000 km of gas mains serving a population of more than 7 million, WWU manages a critical and expansive network.

The company has long been recognised as a leader in risk-based infrastructure investment, and was the first OFGEM-regulated gas operator to adopt a decision-support approach grounded in service and risk principles.

The challenge

To meet the regulatory demands of the RIIO-GD2 8-year programme, WWU needed to develop a robust investment plan and an efficient mechanism for ongoing performance reporting. This plan had to justify significant infrastructure investment while demonstrating transparency and optimisation across its network.

With ever increasing financial scrutiny and cost constraints, WWU faced the challenge of accurately assessing asset condition, criticality, and risk value across thousands of miles of network assets.

Additionally, performance outputs, such as Network Asset Risk Metrics (NARMS), required detailed, consistent analysis and rapid turnaround for regulatory and internal reporting.

Who worked on this project?

WWU partnered with ICS Consulting and Probit to first implement AIM in GD2. ICS brought deep expertise in asset investment planning and led the configuration of AIM for WWU’s specific planning and reporting needs. Probit provided direct technical support and guidance throughout the deployment.

The partnership allowed WWU to leverage a proven consulting approach while customising AIM to their internal processes. Since early 2017, the system has been used not only for high-level planning, but also to support internal users, from specialist modellers to board-level stakeholders, across WWU’s investment lifecycle.

How was AIM used?

WWU used AIM to build a monetised risk-based planning and optimisation platform. Key elements included:

A fast and flexible decision-support system that accounted for asset performance, serviceability, and budgetary constraints.
Scenario modelling tools to test and compare various investment strategies, including differing service levels, timeframes, and intervention mixes.
Custom risk framework using asset failure probability, consequence data, and financial cost modelling to compare investment cases consistently.
Visualisation tools to communicate outputs clearly at all levels, from engineers to the executive team.
Flexible model configuration, with no need for hard coding,ensuring adaptability and transparency in managing evolving requirements.

This system enabled both strategic investment planning and operational performance management across WWU’s extensive network.

The results

The introduction of AIM delivered significant improvements in speed, clarity, and regulatory engagement for WWU:

NARMS reporting requirements, once requiring hours to process, could now be completed in minutes.
The planning methodology and outputs were presented to. and positively received by. WWU’s Executive Management Team.
WWU’s regulatory investment plans for both GD2 and GD3, developed using AIM, received formal OFGEM approval.
AIM continues to provide value in programme delivery, particularly for the Replacement Expenditure (RepEx) programme and optimisation of business-as-usual investments under GD2 and GD3.

“We chose AIM because of their extensive end-to-end knowledge of asset investment planning, their experience in the industry, and their user-friendly product. The visual aspects of AIM make it understandable and usable to everyone all the way up to board level.”

Philippa Wrenn
Asset Planning Manager, Wales and West Utilities

Technical insight

WWU’s AIM deployment integrated probability of failure, consequence, and cost data into a structured monetised risk model. This allowed for precise optimisation of asset interventions against regulatory targets and internal constraints.

Using AIM’s built-in analytics and the Gurobi optimisation engine, WWU could solve complex infrastructure investment problems across multi-year horizons in minutes.

The platform supported custom-defined objective functions, such as minimising investment or maximising service outcomes, while accounting for multiple constraints, including pollution risk, performance levels, and budget caps. Its adaptability ensured future planning scenarios could evolve without system redesign.

What followed for Wales & West Utilities and AIM?

WWU plans to expand its use of AIM for even more sophisticated optimisation under the GD3 programme and has built its own internal team to test investment trade-offs and future-proof the network.

With AIM now fully embedded, the company expects to make it a cornerstone of ongoing strategic and tactical planning, with the flexibility to adapt to future regulatory cycles and evolving industry pressures.

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