Castle Water seeks licence variation to progress its innovation fund-backed water supply project

Castle Water has applied for a wholesale authorisation to be added to its Water Supply and Sewerage Licence. This would enable the company to introduce water into the public networks of English wholesalers, to supply its own customers, where their non-household premises consume at least 5 Ml of water a year.

The extension is needed for Castle to progress the project it secured funding for in the first round of Ofwat’s innovation fund competition. The Didcot Project, being conducted in partnership with Bristol Water, Binnies and RWE, is exploring whether small package schemes for local customers would benefit the market.

Under the pilot, some of RWE’s 20Ml/day abstraction rights (for cooling use at Didcot power station) would be piped to a bespoke water treatment plant designed by Binnies and operated by Bristol Water, treated to DWI standards and then sent to Thames Water’s network via a Thames main, for supply by Castle to its 5Ml+/yr customers. Castle needs the wholesale authorisation before it can progress a Combined Supply application with Thames Water.

Ofwat is consulting on the proposal until 15 September.