Technologies from Siemens, Xylem and Cobalt Water Global are being mobilised through 10 collaborating water companies as part of the first Spring Accelerator challenge.
Launched in 2021 to support the sector in delivering its Water Innovation 2050 joint strategy, Spring is dedicated to water sector transformation through innovation and collaboration and is backed by all UK and Irish water and wastewater companies.
Its Accelerator sets challenges related to 2050 themes, facilitating the end-to-end process from ideation and assessment to collaboration and adoption.
The initial stages of its first challenge, which asked innovators to find ways to reduce operational emissions, have successfully completed, with three new innovations on the fast-track to scaling and adoption.
Siemens’ innovation seeks to optimise performance and emissions reduction using a white-box digital twin of the wastewater treatment process, while Xylem’s Treatment System Optimisation digital twin-based control platform has been designed for process optimisation and greenhouse gas reduction in wastewater treatment.
Next steps
With 10 water companies seeking to work collaboratively to progress these innovations, Spring managing director Carly Perry claimed that all three have the potential to be “gamechangers” in helping the sector achieve net zero.
Reflecting on the process, Adam Cartwright, Siemens head of internet of things applications, added: “As a supplier, it is exciting to see your solution transparently and robustly tested.
“With all the water companies coming together and agreeing a common evaluation framework for the trial it will reduce the time it takes to move to scale adoption. For me, this is the number one benefit of the Accelerator process,” he said.
Mobilisation workshops with the three innovators and water companies, led by Spring, are now underway, while individual trials are also being progressed.
Welsh Water, which is running trials of two of the innovations, has already hosted an information sharing session with other water companies.
Upon completion of individuals trials, a collaborative group trial will be led by Severn Trent.
Richard Powell, Severn Trent innovation manager added that the Spring challenge has been valuable in enabling the firm to review technologies through a “robust and logical” process which has allowed them to quickly hone-in on specific solutions.
“Where there have been legitimate barriers, we’ve been able to talk them through and overcome that barrier,” he said. “As a result, we’ve been able to move the process on quicker than we would have done otherwise.”
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