£42.7m awarded in Ofwat Innovation Fund for water tech projects
Ofwat is providing £42.7m for 16 innovative water sector projects using drones, satellites, and AI to improve water quality and leak detection.
The 16 winners will provide up to 10 per cent funding themselves, taking the total value of money going into winning projects to £48.8m. Winners will be required to share the lessons learnt from funded projects to ensure progress can be built upon by all water companies.
Projects
One Ofwat Innovation Fund Water Breakthrough Challenge project, Smart Skies, Healthy Waters, has been awarded £6m for its project 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.
Using automated drones, robotics and pioneering sampling techniques, Smart Skies, Healthy Waters aims to improve coastal water monitoring. This capability will significantly increase the monitoring and sampling frequency, cutting the time to see results from up to three days to a matter of minutes, meaning customers can access near live updates on bathing-water quality.
The partnership sees Northumbrian Water working with Newcastle University, drone experts Skyports Drone Services, real-time sensor specialists Proteus Instrument and data experts Makutu Dot IO.
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