Why innovation is so important
Without thinking in new ways, and coming up with new solutions, there is no progress. That’s why innovation is at the heart of all our plans for the future. We must meet stretching, ambitious targets to overcome increasing challenges presented by climate change, our aging infrastructure, and new expectations of us from customers and regulators.
New ideas, new ways of thinking and new technologies are the way forward. We need solutions that have far-reaching, cross-cutting benefits,addressing our priority areas: Water Quality & Resilience, Storm Overflows & Pollutions, Net Zero & Environmental Gains, and Affordability & Delivering for our customers.
Routes to innovation
Recognising that not all ideas are equal, we help the business select the right delivery route for innovation – maximising impact for our customers, society, and the environment.
- Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water, and Waste (CREWW) Research
Find out more about CREWW - Ofwat Innovation Fund
Accelerating breakthrough innovation through collaboration – sharing data, knowledge and experience across the water sector and supply chain. - Internal Ideation from scouting, testing and deployment
Identifying near-to-market tech and rapidly deploying solutions that bring real, measurable service benefits. - EU Horizon Funding
Collaborating with other water utilities outside of the UK, and various partners in academia, industry, and from other utility sectors across the EU - UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR)
Collaborating with UKWIR to Influence and shape the UK’s water research agenda; lead or support targeted research projects with sector-wide impact.
Innovation in action
Below are some of the live and complete innovation projects South West Water are involved in the delivery of.
Prediction and Early Detection of Algal blooms in lakes and reservoirs (PEDAL)
PEDAL is a 3-year, £2.2 million project aiming to detect and predict Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) funded by the Ofwat Innovation Fund. HABs cause costly treatment, poor water quality, ecosystem loss, and prevent recreational activities on lakes. Working in close partnership with CREWW, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, South West Lakes Trust, and other academic and industry collaborators, South West Water will lead the development of new tools to predict and manage harmful algal blooms before they grow. By combining satellite images and drone technology with water quality data and input from local communities, we will build an early warning system for algal blooms. This will enable water companies to avoid expensive treatment and water quality problems.
Water Net Gain
Water Net Gain is an Ofwat funded project led by South West Water and Westcountry Rivers Trust.
This research project aims to incentivise landowners and farmers to store water on their land for gradual release into the river during periods of drought.
Creating de-centralised water storage solutions that have the potential to deliver demand reduction benefits.
While this project focusses on water resources and drought resilience, during periods of high rainfall more water can be trapped in the catchments reducing flood and erosion risk and deliver biodiversity benefits.
Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)
AIoT is a Ofwat funded cross-sector initiative lead by Severn Trent, with partners including Microsoft, BT, the National Cyber Security Centre, and the University of Exeter. It aims to use artificial intelligence to monitor waste catchment areas in real time, reducing flooding and sewage pollution. South West Water are delivering a trial in Ilsham Valley. Following completion of the installation of new outstation with the telemetry equipment at Hele tank, we are moving into Stage 4 of the project – Live Trials of System AI, preparing the Hele tank for artificial intelligence and real-time operational technology.
Pynes Network Training Centre and Test Rig
South West Water has invested in a state-of-the-art water network training and testing facility in Exeter. The centre was designed to provide hands-on training to network operators, exposing candidates to a representation of a very typical water supply system. The training rig contains most components that constitute a public water supply system: pumps, valves, hydrants, meters, sensors, live pressure and flow measurement, closed loop pressure control, air release, admittance, and much more.
The isolated system is supplied via its own reservoir, header tank, and variable speed pump. The rig can be pressurised to in excess of 16 bars, and flows can be pushed to approximately 20lps. This makes it perfect for training, but equally for testing water system innovations, invention and widgets.
South West Water have a number of ongoing technical solutions being co-developed where extensive testing has been completed before the more challenging live field pilots happen. This safe and controlled environment perfectly enables real world testing, without the challenges of a live, customer supplying network.
We’d welcome more products for testing at the centre.
Areas of focus
We have four areas of focus for future innovation which will support our delivery of Our Plan for Change. If you have an idea, technology, or concept that you know can help us do this, please get in touch using the form below.
Our projects
