Thames Water has secured Ofwat’s Water Innovation Fund backing for two projects designed to reduce disruption for customers and communities, while delivering long-term environmental and operational benefits.
The two initiatives are winners of the sixth Water Breakthrough Challenge, funded by the Water Innovation Fund, which has awarded £58 million to 19 projects tackling the water sector’s biggest challenges.
SI12 Challenge: Rethinking Interruptions, Unlocking Innovation, Minimising Impact
The first project will test whether extending planned water supply interruptions, for some pre-planned pipe maintenance works, from three hours to up to 12 hours could unlock innovative in-pipe repair and renewal techniques.
The project’s partners include Yorkshire Water Services, United Utilities, South West Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water and Stantec UK.
These approaches have the potential to reduce road disruption, noise, carbon emissions and overall costs, while helping the sector renew ageing infrastructure more efficiently.
The £1.9million project will also gather customer feedback to better understand how people assess longer planned interruptions against the benefits of faster, less disruptive works.
As Thames Water delivers its biggest network upgrade in 150 years, this project will support its water mains replacement programme, with more than 550km of mains due to be replaced over the next five years.
Martin Padley, Water Director at Thames Water said: “This serves as an exceptional opportunity to work with our customers to optimise the biggest network upgrade in 150 years.
“Trialling this new regulatory approach will enable a better customer experience when delivering these essential works in a way that drives down disruption to communities and the environment.”
SuDS through Streetworks Market (SMM)
The second project delivered in collaboration with the Greater London Authority (GLA) aims to create a new market-based approach to delivering sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) alongside planned streetworks.
The SSM represents a flagship innovation project that stands to create the UK’s first environmental services market for SuDS.
In an average year, about 186,000 street works are undertaken in London to maintain utility networks and highways.
By incentivising utility companies and highways authorities to integrate SuDS, such as rain gardens), when reinstating their street works, the £7.6million project aims to reduce surface water flood risk, cut disruption and speed up the delivery of greener infrastructure.
The model is designed to help unlock SuDS delivery at scale, improve climate resilience and create a framework that could be used more widely across the UK.
Alex Nickson, Head of Environmental Compliance and Water Quality at Thames Water said: “Surface water flooding from heavy rainfall is a real and present risk in London.
“Through this funding, Thames Water and the Greater London Authority will operationalise the first environmental services market for sustainable drainage systems.
“The SSM will transform how SuDS are planned, scaling delivery and enabling wider application through a market-based solution.”
Jo Jolly, Director of Innovation at Ofwat, said: “The water sector is going through its biggest transformation in 30 years.
“We have to make sure these changes drive far better outcomes for society and the environment. Multiple urgent challenges must be solved. And, importantly, our mindset must change.
“So that’s our mission: bold, innovative solutions that take a long-term approach to the health of our vital water system and the impact of the water industry on environments and communities. This line-up of winners shows us just what can be achieved when we set our minds to it.”
