South Staffordshire Water wins funding for two groundbreaking innovation schemes

South Staffordshire Water Plc, operator of South Staffs Water and Cambridge Water, has secured more than £3 million in funding from the £200 million programme to support its Recovering Energy from Water and Space Eye schemes. These forward-thinking initiatives aim to drive innovation within the water sector and address some of its key challenges.

Recovering Energy from Water

Recovering Energy from Water is a collaborative initiative that brings together South Staffordshire Water with partners including OnSite, WSP, Carrier, Spring, Affinity Water, Portsmouth Water and South West Water. The project has won £1.31 million of funding and an additional 10% contribution from these partners brings the total funding to £1.6 million. The University of Cambridge is also lending its support to the project.

One of the water sector’s greatest challenges is reducing carbon emissions, with industry-wide goals to cut emissions by 78% by 2035 and achieve Net Zero by 2050. A critical part of meeting these targets involves decreasing dependence on fossil fuels.

The Recovering Energy from Water scheme explores how existing water infrastructure can be repurposed to generate heat. This approach could allow nearby community buildings and amenities to tap into a renewable energy source, lowering costs and making green energy more accessible. These potential outcomes would benefit customers, the environment, and the push toward a low-carbon future.

OnSite – a leading UK provider of specialist contracting services and part of South Staffordshire Plc’s infrastructure division – will collaborate closely with South Staffs Water and its partners. By combining expertise in water systems and renewable energy, the team aims to design and develop a solution that contributes to the sector’s sustainability goals.

Space Eye

Space Eye aims to make use of satellite technology and space science to provide updated satellite imagery every few hours, covering the entire UK water pipe network, to help quickly locate leaks.

This project has won £1.31 million of funding, and partners will contribute a further 10%, taking the total funding to £1.46 million. These partners include Quub, University of Wolverhampton, Spring, and six water companies – SES Water, Northumbrian Water, Welsh Water, South East Water, Scottish Water and United Utilities.

There are over 350,000km of water pipes in England and Wales serving more than 26 million properties. Some of the water entering the pipe network is lost to leaks in its journey to customer taps. This not only represents a waste of valuable water resources, but also a costly waste of energy.

This project will allow water companies, through innovative machine-learning algorithms combined with data science, to explore a myriad of opportunities, including quickly locating leaks and water wastage.