Over 10 years, the regulator’s fund is investing £600, in projects and technologies to benefit the environment, society and customers.
In total, 16 winning projects are sharing £42.7m, with winners required to put up at least an additional 10% themselves, taking the total to £48.8m.
Project profiles
Winners include the ‘Smart Skies, Healthy Waters’ project, a partnership involving Northumbrian Water and Newcastle University, among others. The project has been awarded £6m to create a ‘drone-and lab-in-a-box’ that provides near-real-time, on-site results and lab-grade analysis of coastal bathing water quality.
Meanwhile, Space Eye, which will utilise satellite technology to locate leaks, identify water wastage from unauthorised or unnecessary water use, and analyse surface water to check whether harmful chemicals are impacting water quality, has been awarded £1.3m.
The project will include the design, launch and operation of micro-satellites to provide continual imaging of the UK-wide water pipe network.
United Utilities is also among the winners, having been awarded £7.1m across two projects.
These include a project which will look at DNA sequencing techniques to deep dive into what is present in the firm’s wastewater at a microbial level. The second aims to create and maintain an efficient, green wastewater treatment process.
Kieran Brocklebank, head of innovation at United Utilities, said: “We are pleased to continue our track record of tapping into the Ofwat Innovation funding, applying the results to our own operations – and then sharing with other water companies so everyone can benefit. Together with our fantastic partners, we can develop and deliver innovative solutions to wastewater treatment here at United Utilities, and ultimately safeguard the future of our environment.”
Meanwhile, SandSCAPE, a collaboration between four water companies led by Thames Water, has been awarded £2m to test at full scale tank-like robots (up to five metres in length) that make chemical-free slow sand filtration more efficient.
The robots being tested by SandSCAPE will trial underwater cleaning of sand filters while in operation.
Strategic approach
Marc Hannis, principal of Ofwat’s innovation fund, told a panel session at the Utility Week Live event this week that the latest announcement took total spend to just over £200m across 109 different projects.
“Overall, we see innovation as key to meeting the challenges of the future and we’re really working hard to create the conditions in which innovation can thrive in water,” he said.
“So this includes not only making funding available to develop those innovative solutions and approaches, but also to identify the regulatory barriers to innovation, engaging colleagues across the government, regulators, water companies, the supply chain, all stakeholders really to help reduce those barriers.
“And there’s a tonne of other stuff we’re doing on top of this as well, all in an effort to ensure that innovation is better embedded in the sector and we can make the change that we need to make.”
David Black, Ofwat chief executive, said: “The level of ambition of this year’s winners – including deploying robots, drones, satellites and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence – is remarkable.
“The 16 winning projects involve 15 water companies working with 70 partners – from world-class universities to engineering powerhouses, environmental charities and even NASA.
“We are supporting these projects to prove their impact so that they can be scaled, not only here in England and Wales, but exported around the world as a driver of economic growth.”
Fuente: Edie.net