John Gallagher attends Water Industry Innovation Conference in Birmingham
The Water Industry Innovation Conference takes place once again in 2014, with John Gallagher from the Hydro-BPT in attendance. The line-up of speakers represented the different players in driving innovation in the water industry: the water companies, engineering and technology firms and the regulators. All speakers representing their organisations shared the same view: innovation is key to the future of sustainability in the water industry and continued investment is needed to achieve this. Leakage statistics have improved in recent years, yet expenditure on R&D remains a small fraction of the total spends of water companies.
In John's opinion, for the findings of the Hydro-BPT project to really make an impact i..e MHP implemented across the Water Infrastructure in Ireland and Wales, water companies have to be willing to see beyond their 3-5 year investment programme and adopt a more long term vision of the benefits of energy recovery in the water industry. Anglian Water should be noted for their 15 year contracts to promote innovation and their objective to halve their embodied carbon of 2010 projects by 2015. Bigger steps are being taken by some water companies, but all are taking small steps in the right direction.
Publication date: 30 June 2014