Innovation in the water industry involves cooperation, collaboration and ambitious goals to push the envelope of what is achievable. Innovation is a key pillar for our goals during AMP7, and this will continue as we progress into the 2025-2030 cycle going forward.
Innovation isn’t just a buzzword for us; it’s fundamental to addressing the critical challenges facing the water industry. As we move away from AMP7 into AMP8 (2025-2030), our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable through collaboration, ambition and innovation remains steadfast.
The water sector is under increasing scrutiny, particularly concerning environmental pollution, leakage, and water quality at customer taps. With higher expectations from both regulators and customers, performance standards will only intensify in the coming years. Innovation is vital to enable us to achieve demanding targets and fosters a collaborative environment for both our internal teams and external partners across the sector.
Our approach to innovation
At South East Water, our innovation strategy is dynamic and tailored to our specific needs. We place a strong emphasis on internal and external collaboration to drive groundbreaking solutions. We actively participate in established mechanisms like the Ofwat Innovation Fund and Spring Accelerator, which facilitate close partnerships with other water companies to tackle shared challenges and disseminate best practices.
The Ofwat Innovation Fund, established by the regulator in 2020, promotes collaborative innovation across the water sector, including partnerships with non-water companies possessing relevant expertise. Starting in 2025, Ofwat will also be initiating the Water Efficiency Fund (WEF), which emphasises innovation in reducing customer demand, and provides a shared communication initiative that would benefit all UK water companies. As a water-only company, we may be small, but our keen involvement underscores our dedication to strengthening and growing the sector.
Featured Ofwat-Funded Projects
In AMP7, we have been actively involved in several impactful projects through the Ofwat Innovation Fund, some of which will continue into AMP8:
- ‘CatchmentLIFE’: Our lead project, in collaboration with the River Restoration Centre (RRC), is developing bespoke software to assist with environmental and biodiversity management. This tool will enable volunteers and experts to visualise the impact of habitat degradation on wildlife and ecological communities. The project is due to be completed imminently.
- ‘Water Net Gain’: This initiative explores a catchment-scale approach where farmers are compensated for storing water on their land. By restoring natural “sponges” like healthy soils, woodlands, and wetlands, and creating smart ponds and lakes, we can enhance water resilience during droughts, improve biodiversity, offer flood protection, and reduce demand for potable water.
- ‘National Leakage Research & Test Centre (NLRTC)’: This groundbreaking project involves a 5km buried water pipe network dedicated to developing and testing new technologies without disrupting customer supplies or water quality. This will significantly accelerate the adoption of new leakage detection and prevention solutions across the sector. This project is long term and will not be completed until the end of AMP8, underscoring the massive investment of this project.
- ‘Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative (CaSTCo)’: As part of this £7.1 million partnership, led by United Utilities and including 12 water and sewerage companies, academic institutions, and environmental charities, we are revolutionising how crucial data about England and Wales’ water environments, particularly river health, is collected and shared.
More details on these funds are available on the Ofwat Innovation in Water Challenge website.
Looking Ahead
We continuously strive to improve the services we provide to our customers. We actively seek external expertise to leverage proven technologies for the challenges we’ve identified. In preparation for AMP8, We’ve pinpointed 17 key focus areas, ranging from network digital twins to improve network visibility to no-dig repair technologies to reduce the cost of leak repairs and customer bills, all of which are aligned to our corporate objectives and themes.
Our strategic approach to innovation allows us to target appropriate technologies, conducting short trials that either “fail fast” or succeed against agreed objectives. Successful innovations are then scaled up for wider rollout. Our teams embed innovative thinking in business as usual activities and are always looking at better ways of working. We have delivered many innovative projects aligned to our key focus areas, including the delivery of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to enhance our chalk streams and smart network technologies.
We must be ambitious and innovative if we are to deliver against our long term vision. Reducing leakage by 50% by 2050, achieving Net Zero by 2030, to name a few, will not be possible without a strong innovation culture.
We also leverage other innovation avenues and look to share knowledge within and without the sector, including through Spring Centre of Excellence and UKWIR, and ISLE technologies, to discover and implement valuable solutions. The collaborative approach all water companies share means we are cost efficient and deliver value to customers in our area and all over the UK.
Driving the Future of Water Management
Innovation is truly at the heart of how we deliver exceptional customer service and continuously improve our operations for the benefit of our customers. We are actively exploring new ways to enhance collaboration across the water sector and engage with our local communities to understand and deliver the service they expect. These core ideas will be integral to our future planning and delivery for AMP8.