Spring, the water sector centre of excellence, has launched its first innovation challenge to help the water industry achieve its net zero carbon ambitions.
The first part of the challenge, which opened Monday (14 February), is looking for implementable innovation ideas that can bring about a reduction in operational emissions from water and wastewater treatment.
From April, the second part of the challenge will open to innovators to submit ideas around the wider theme of achieving net zero carbon.
Spring began life as part of Ofwat’s Water Innovation 2050 strategy and received £250,000 funding through the regulator’s innovation fund, which was matched by UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) members. The online Spring platform was launched in September as a hub for innovators, academia and water companies to share resources and work around commonly experienced challenges in the water sector.
In line with Spring’s founding mission, collaboration will be encouraged between innovators and the participating water companies entering the challenges.
Spring’s consultant executive lead, Carly Perry, said the innovation challenge is the first chance to really test the Spring platform and kick-start the iterative innovation process to improve it for future challenges.
“Operational net zero carbon is, arguably, the biggest innovation challenge the water sector faces at the moment. Our challenges will accelerate solutions water companies can start rolling out, delivering efficiencies and improving the services they provide for their customers,” Perry said.
Spring partnered with Isle Utilities to host the competitions. Erin Zhang, project director at Isle Utilities, said: “Over the last decade, Isle has worked to accelerate the adoption of new solutions and ideas in the water sector. We have been at the centre of the ecosystem, scouting for technologies and forming collaborative projects that lead to their uptake – and we’re bringing this experience to Spring. We believe in collaboration and supporting Spring is part of our ambition to continue to drive innovation in the UK to meet the challenges of the next decade.”
Applications for the first challenge are open until 14 March and successful applicants will be asked to present their ideas in April to a panel of carbon specialists from the water sector who will assess all submissions.