We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been named as one of the of Ofwat’s Water Breakthrough Challenge winners.

Delivered by ChallengeWorks with Arup and Isle Utilities, the Water Breakthrough Challenge and aims to encourage initiatives that help to tackle the biggest challenges facing the water sector, such as achieving net zero, protecting natural ecosystems and reducing leakage, as well as delivering value to society.

Intelligent Gels and its partners (Northumbrian Water Group, Durham University and Technology innovation catalyst CPI) will upscale our innovation in order to prevent tree root intrusion into the sewer network.

A new pipeline coating will be further developed in order to reduce blockages, prevent flooding and pollution events. Work is due to start this summer.

On World Water Day, Future Water announced the winner of the 2022 Water Dragons competition. Supported by sponsors Hydrosave and new supporter WRc, the Dragons throughout 2022 came from investors, innovators, water companies and regulators. The innovators came from a variety of backgrounds and brought ideas from UK, Luxembourg and Canada.

Commenting on the judge’s outcome, Alastair Moseley, Water Dragon Judge Chair & Future Water Board Member said:
"All of the innovations presented to the Water Dragons judges, were high quality and all will have a part to play in the future transformation of the water sector. Choosing a winner was therefore extremely challenging but, in the end, it came down to the innovation that the judges felt was breaking new ground and doing something that hasn’t been available before."

Yorkshire Water and its partners Morrisons Water Services and Intelligent Gels have successfully trialled the use of gel to remove sediments from rising mains.

The trial saw gel inserted into the wastewater network and used existing pumping within the network to push it through 4km of nine-inch sewers to remove sediment and build up in rising mains.

Mark Gregory, project manager at Yorkshire Water, said: "We are always looking at innovative new technologies to help us manage our networks and make them more efficient.

This successful trial removed sediment from a large section of our network, ultimately helping to protect the pumps, extend their life, reduce the likelihood of failures and the associated customer and environmental impact that can have. This is an exciting development and one we’re looking at using further across our network."