Ofwat Innovation Fund has today announced the winners of the fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge - £42.7 million is being awarded to develop projects and technologies to help solve some of the many challenges facing the water sector.

Photo credit Thames Water: SandSCAPE Dutch skimmer skimming indoor filters in the Netherlands

Winners include drones that provide near-real-time testing of coastal bathing waters, satellites to provide continual imaging of the entire UK water pipe network to identify leaks and wastage and robots to make chemical-free sand filtration of water more efficient.

The Ofwat Innovation Fund is investing £600 million between 2020 and 2030, with winners of this year’s challenge working with promising innovators from across different sectors and around the world to develop solutions to the water sector’s biggest challenges.The winning projects see water companies working with 70 partners, from world-class universities, engineering powerhouses, environmental charities and NASA.

The 16 winning projects have shared £42.7 million in funding to scale solutions to some of the sector’s biggest challenges. In addition, winners are required to put up at least an additional 10% themselves, taking the total value of money going into winning projects to £48.8 million. Winners are required to share the lessons learnt from funded projects openly to ensure progress can be built upon by all water companies.

Smart Skies, Healthy Waters has been awarded £6 million, 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 cutting-edge sampling techniques, Smart Skies, Healthy Waters aims to greatly 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 rather than having to wait.

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.

A further £1.3 million has been awarded to Space Eye to transform the use of satellite technology for the water industry. The project will include the design, launch and operation of micro-satellites to provide continual imaging of the entire UK water pipe network.

Machine-learning algorithms will enable Space Eye to quickly locate leaks in pipes that become visible by rising to the surface, identify water wastage from unauthorised or unnecessary water use, and analyse surface water to check whether harmful chemicals are impacting water quality, to help water companies fix problems quickly, resulting in fewer delays for customers affected by water supply issues and minimising disruption.

Five water companies in England and Wales, led by South Staffordshire Water, are teaming up with US micro-satellite experts Quub, the University of Wolverhampton, Scottish Water and Spring – the centre of excellence for water sector innovation.

SandSCAPE – a collaboration between four water companies, led by Thames Water – has also been awarded £2 million to test at full scale tank-like robots (up to 5 metres in length) that make chemical-free ‘slow sand filtration’ more efficient. Slow sand filtration is a highly effective, nature-based solution for cleaning water, but has a built-in inefficiency because of the need to regularly stop and drain the sand filters of water to remove the sand layer containing the particles captured when making the water fit to drink.

The robots being tested by SandSCAPE will trial underwater cleaning of sand filters while in operation. Effective, chemical-free alternatives for water purification will benefit the environment while maintaining the highest water quality standards for customers.

David Black, CEO of Ofwat said:

“The level of ambition of this year’s winners – including deploying robots, drones, satellites and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence – is remarkable. The 16 winning projects involve 15 water companies working with 70 partners - from world-class universities to engineering powerhouses, environmental charities and even NASA. We are supporting these projects to prove their impact so that they can be scaled, not only here in England and Wales, but exported around the world as a driver of economic growth”.

The Ofwat Innovation Fund is delivered by innovation prize experts Challenge Works (part of the Nesta group), in partnership with Arup and Isle Utilities.

Click here to find out more about all 16 of the winners of the fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge