Water Breakthrough Challenge 1

Water Breakthrough Challenge 1

What was the Water Breakthrough Challenge 1 ?

Part of the Ofwat Innovation Fund, a £200 million fund to grow the water sector’s capacity to innovate, enabling it to better meet the evolving needs of customers, society and the environment in England and Wales. Read more about the Innovation in Water Challenge.

The Breakthrough Challenge was the second competition funded through the Ofwat Innovation Fund.

It provided an opportunity for water companies, in partnership with other organisations, to receive funding for innovative initiatives that go beyond business as usual to deliver tangible benefits for customers, society and the environment. 

Run by Ofwat and Challenge Works, supported by Arup, the Water Breakthrough Challenge was funded through Ofwat’s £200 million Innovation Fund, as part of the regulator’s goal to create an innovative and collaborative water sector that meets the needs of customers, society and the environment in the years to come.

The Breakthrough Challenge aimed to encourage collaborative innovative initiatives that help tackle the biggest challenges facing the water and wastewater services, such as achieving net zero, protecting natural ecosystems and reducing leakage, as well as taking opportunities to use open data and deliver value to society. It was for initiatives that water companies would otherwise be unable to invest in or explore – and may exist in other sectors of our economy or worldwide. This might include, for example: trialing new technology, commercial models, ways of working or business practices.

This challenge was funded by

  • OFWAT logo

The Winners

The five strategic innovation themes

There are five key areas that Ofwat has identified that are big challenges for the sector, which would benefit from additional innovation, expressed in the five strategic innovation themes. Through the competitions, the Innovation Fund will support initiatives that can deliver significant value for customers, society and the environment aligned with one or more of these themes:

One

Responding and adapting to climate change, including how to meet the sector’s ambition of net-zero emissions.

Two

Restoring and improving the ecological status of our water environments, protecting current and future customers from the impacts of extreme weather and pollution

Three

Understanding long-term operational resilience and infrastructure risks to customers and the environment, finding solutions to mitigate these in sustainable and efficient ways.

Four

Testing new ways of conducting core activities to deliver wider public value.

Five

Exploring the opportunities associated with open data, stimulating innovation and collaboration, for example, encouraging new business models and service offerings that benefit customers, including those in vulnerable circumstances.

The Judges