Scottish Water has launched a £450,000 water treatment innovation challenge – the water company is looking to the country’s most innovative minds to come up with new ways of treating water at point-of-use.
Up to five successful applicants could win a share of £450,000 to produce a feasibility study of their proposal, which must focus on treating water containing a high level of organic material.
The aim of the challenge, which is one of the initial Scotland Can Do Innovation Challenge Fund challenges, is to find new ways of treating water and providing safe drinking water to rural households in a cost effective way at the point of use.
Scotland has more than 10,000 water supplies that serve only one household, while another 20,000 supplies serve a population of fewer than 50 people. Most of the supplies are served by surface waters high in organic matter which currently proves challenging for existing technologies to treat reliably.
Allan Mason, Senior Project Manager and Sustainable Communities Programme Lead at Scottish Water, said:
“Recent trials of commercially available systems have shown they require heavy maintenance and can suffer from poor reliability when treating surface water high in organic loading or sources that suffer from a large degree of quality variability. Reliability is key and systems must provide water to drinking standard 100% of the time.
“Our aim is to create a water and wastewater service that is truly affordable, resilient and sustainable to even the most remote of our communities - the Can Do Innovation Challenge Fund is a fantastic opportunity for innovators and entrepreneurs to help us to achieve that and create new ways of treating water in a ‘decentralised’ way.”
He added:
“There are a number of market ready technologies and more conceptual technologies that have the potential to unlock this opportunity. What's missing is the R&D around them to draw out synergies between technologies and processes and we are encouraging any applications regardless of Research & Development stage."
George Ponton, Head of Research and Innovation at Scottish Water, said:
“As we mature our approach to innovation, it is important to recognise that we don’t always have all of the answers to solve our problems. We recognise the value of collaborating to innovate effectively and have done this successfully with suppliers and academia.
“Open innovation is an excellent way of extending the challenge to others outside of our existing network to share our challenges and bring new thinking to try and solve them.”
Applicants must register by April 18 and submit their solution by April 25.
Find out more and apply or contact Scottish Water with any questions at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Barhale has completed work on two separate Rapid Action Taskforce Spills projects it is carrying out for Severn Trent.
Börger UK, which has firmly established itself as a leading pump brand since it was set up in Staffordshire in 2004, has moved into bigger, brand-new premises in Shrewsbury.
HUBER Technology UK & Ireland are inviting people to register for their March webinar where they will be providing information about HUBER water intake screens for municipal and industrial applications.
Sulzer has launched a new global Center of Excellence (CoE) for Water Treatment Solutions - the CoE consolidates Sulzer’s wastewater treatment expertise in a unified and global manner.
Hear how Scottish Water has completed its £235 million Ayrshire Glasgow Resilience Project - customers across Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire will now benefit from a more secure and resilient water supply.
Hear how United Utilities is accelerating its investment to reduce spills from storm overflows across the Northwest.
Find out more about the remarkable career opportunities on offer at WSP - scroll down to watch the inspirational video.