Water main breaks on Sydney Water's network fell from 5,417 in FY 2016-17 to 4,436 in FY 2024-25. Over the same period, unplanned drinking water supply interruptions rose from 284,912 to 330,634, an increase of 16.0%. The average unplanned interruption now lasts 178 minutes, against 133 minutes in FY 2016-17, or 33.8% longer.
A bigger system on a slower-growing network
The utility served 5,565,000 people with drinking water in FY 2024-25, up 294,000 since FY 2020-21. Properties with a drinking water service rose 4.6% over those four years, to 2,177,057. The drinking water mains grew by only 363 km, from 22,600 km to 22,963 km. More customers now sit on each kilometer of pipe.
What the license measures
Sydney Water's Operating Licence 2024–2028 sets service standards by property, not by asset. Clause 14 requires at least 98.00% of properties supplied with drinking water to be unaffected each year by an unplanned interruption of more than 5 continuous hours. Clause 16 sets a dry weather wastewater overflow standard of 99.28% of properties unaffected. On the wastewater side, dry weather overflow volumes in FY 2024-25 rose 59% in inland catchments and 175% in ocean catchments compared with FY 2023-24.
Quality is not the problem
All 13 drinking water systems fully complied with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines in FY 2024-25, and no boil water alerts were issued. Customers nonetheless rate their tap water lower than before: satisfaction with tap water quality was 57% in FY 2024-25, against 69% in FY 2020-21.
The report sets these service trends against Sydney Water's supply sources, its regulators, its A$32 billion 10-year investment plan and the projects due between 2026 and 2030. It also covers how the system's ownership is divided and where its next decade of capacity will come from. The full report, Water Systems Overview: Sydney Water, is available for USD 499 at https://ourfuturewaterintelligence.com/reports/water-systems-overview-sydney-water. For a free overview, read the Sydney Water Utility Snapshot at https://ourfuturewaterintelligence.com/utilities/sydney-water.