Ofwat unveils latest batch of Water Breakthrough Challenge winners

(by Karma Loveday)

Nineteen projects have won a share of £58m in Ofwat’s sixth Water Breakthrough Challenge competition.

Each project sees water companies work in collaboration with a diverse set of partners – from environmental charities and leading universities to technology and engineering companies – with the purpose of changing how the water sector operates to transform its impact for customers, communities and the environment.

The winners were:

Carbon Harvesting for Energy (CH4NGE) – led by Yorkshire Water Services in partnership with Xylem Water Solutions, Cranfield University, Thames Water and United Utilities - £1,632,265. 

This project is trialling a new way to treat wastewater in order to capture and reuse more valuable carbon-based resources such as nutrients for agriculture, produce more renewable energy and reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from the current sludge treatment process. The project will use Xylem’s filtration system to capture real-world data, in a bid to help the water sector achieve net zero.

Chemnovate – Circular and Low Carbon Chemical Solutions for Drinking Water – led by Anglian Water in partnership with Cranfield University, Essex and Suffolk Water, Northumbrian Water, Scottish Water and Spring Innovation - £1,931,201. 

Developing a holistic approach to reduce the chemical, waste and energy burden of UK drinking water treatment, which currently costs over £60m a year and generates 60,000 tonnes of CO₂e. The project will test innovative, low‑energy techniques to recover and reuse water treatment chemicals, cutting waste, costs and carbon emissions.

Community Water Enterprises: Local People Caring for Local Nature and Water – led by Wessex Water in partnership with the King's Trust, National Trust, Thames 21, Rivers Trust and others - £4,982,762. 

This locally-rooted project is bringing together customers, communities, utilities, councils, charities and others to look after and maintain nature-based water management solutions such as rain gardens and wetlands. These create greener spaces that soak up rain, reduce flood risk, ease pressure on sewers to reduce overflows, and protect rivers – helping the water sector to combat its key challenges.

Good Vibrations: Ecoacoustic river health monitoring – led by Severn Trent Water in partnership with Suez, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Yorkshire Water, United Utilities, and Anglian Water - £1,567,846. 

A new way to monitor river health by ‘listening’ to rivers. Healthy rivers are rich in life, much of which produces sound – this project will use underwater microphones to capture these acoustic signals. Artificial intelligence will then analyse the recordings and translate them into insights about the health of rivers and the life they support.

Headstart: Unlocking the value of headwater catchments – led by Anglian Water in partnership with the National Trust, Freshwater Habitats Trust, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Nottingham Trent University and others – £6,954,765. 

Developing practical frameworks to help water companies improve river health by focusing on headwater catchments – the location at which rivers and streams begin. The project will test practical upgrades to treatment works and nature‑based solutions. In each demonstration, a small wastewater treatment works upgrade will be combined with practical nature-based actions in the headwaters, such as improving land management, restoring streams and creating ponds and wetlands. The results will be used to create a web-based tool which helps water companies decide where treatment works upgrades will most improve headwater quality, where headwater restoration will deliver the biggest benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and to identify which types of measures will deliver the most benefits in a catchment.

Hydrothermal Oxidation – led by Anglian Water in partnership with AtkinsRealis, Cetogenix, Cranfield University, Severn Trent Water, Northumbrian Water, Spring Innovation and others – £9,240,088. 

This project is developing a commercial-scale process that breaks down organic waste using water at very high temperature and pressure. Oxygen is added, causing the materials to oxidise within water, in the same way they would oxidise when burnt, converting harmful substances into carbon dioxide (which can be captured), water, and salts. This project aims to replace the current practice of spreading sewage sludge to agricultural land, instead converting wastewater into useful bioresources.

I’m a P-Leaver: Utilising Biochar for Phosphorus and PFAS removal – led by Severn Trent Water in partnership with Harper Adams University, the University of Exeter (CREWW), Shropshire County Council, Nijhuis Saur Industries and others – £1,628,842. 

Engineering a circular solution to remove PFAS and phosphorus from wastewater using biochar made from pyrolysed sewage sludge. The project will test whether modified biochar can capture chemical pollutants and fertilisers for reuse, helping to protect rivers, cut costs, support farming, and boost sustainability.

Mycofiltration: Using Fungi as a Natural Way to Improve Water Quality – led by Anglian Water in partnership with Spore & Anvil, Flete Field Lab, Barhale, University of Essex, Imperial College London, South East Water, Spring Innovation and others – £1,522,159. 

Mycelia are exceptional at filtering water – a process known as mycofiltration – due to their dense, fibrous structure, which acts as a physical mesh, and their ability to secrete powerful enzymes that chemically break down contaminants including heavy metals, insecticides, and bacteria, turning them into harmless compounds. The project will trial fungal-based filters at storm overflows and run-off sites to remove pollutants in a low-carbon, cost-effective way.

OCI³ (Open Catchment Intelligence, Insights and Collaboration) – led by Northumbrian Water in partnership with Xylem, Water Research Centre, Rivers Trust, Cognizant Ocean, Thames21, Westcountry Rivers Trust and others – £1,997,820. 

Providing the UK’s first free, open-source tool to understand river health. The project will combine data from regulators, water companies, citizen scientists, and satellites into a live model, showing water quality and sector performance. The result is a shared, trusted evidence base that supports clearer decisions, better investment targeting and most importantly, healthier rivers.

PipeUP: Pipe Universal Portal – led by Yorkshire Water Services in partnership with RPS Environmental Management Limited - £1,571,565. 

Around a fifth of drinking water in the network is lost to leaks. This project is focused on creating a secure, shared platform for water companies to access combined and standardised knowledge, information, and data. By linking fragmented data and improving access, the project will help the sector innovate faster, detect leaks sooner, reduce wasted water, and improve customer service.

Printfrastructure 2.0 – led by Northumbrian Water in partnership with Changemaker 3D Limited, United Utilities, Scottish Water, Anglian Water and others – £1,911,437. 

Advancing 3D concrete printing for wastewater infrastructure enables onsite construction of larger storage tanks using low-carbon, water-approved materials. Building on earlier success achieved in Water Breakthrough Challenge 3, which demonstrated up to 50% reduction in CO₂e for concrete infrastructure while cutting construction costs by 8%, the project aims to scale the technology to speed up delivery, cut costs and carbon, and reduce pressure on constrained supply chains.

SCWO With the Flow: Supercritical Water Oxidation for a Cleaner Future – led by United Utilities in partnership with General Atomics, Cleanfields Technologies, Queen’s University Belfast, Yorkshire Water and others – £611,012. 

Developing Supercritical Water Oxidation (SCWO) as a future treatment option for biosolids and wastewater sludge. SCWO uses water at extremely high temperature and pressure, with oxygen, to break down organic waste into simpler substances while enabling resource recovery. The project will demonstrate its potential and develop a roadmap for future scale-up and adoption across the UK water sector.

SI12 Challenge: Rethinking Interruptions, Unlocking Innovation, Minimising Impact – led by Thames Water in partnership with Yorkshire Water, United Utilities, South West Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water and others – £150,000. 

Testing whether planned water supply interruptions of up to 12 hours could unlock faster, lower-impact pipe repair methods. The project will explore innovative in-pipe technologies such as advanced lining and robotic tools that could reduce costs, carbon, road disruption, and noise. Customer feedback will help assess whether this approach is acceptable and beneficial.

Smart Alarm Management (SAM) – led by Northumbrian Water in partnership with Softwire Technology Limited, the Engineering, Equipment and Materials Users Association (EEMUA), Wessex Water and Anglian Water - £1,661,838. 

Improving how water industry control rooms handle alarms by using AI and machine learning to prioritise issues and identify root causes. The system will help operators respond faster and more effectively, improving decision making. Clear, standardised guidelines will support consistent alarm management across the sector so it can identify and fix problems faster.

Smart Watch – Your Catchment Companion – led by Affinity Water in partnership with SatSense, Prifysgol Aberystwyth, Welsh Water, Wessex Water, South West Water and others – £1,035,000. 

Developing new ways to detect and identify risks to drinking water quality using remote sensing in water company catchments. The project aims to create automated, high-frequency detection tools and make the outputs easy to use, to provide a step change in how quickly management teams can identify issues with drinking water quality.

Smoke in the Water: Uncovering Public Health Data in Sewers – led by Severn Trent Water in partnership with University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Kando Environmental, Resistomap  and others – £2,000,000. 

Wastewater monitoring can be used to detect antimicrobial resistance within populations earlier, since antibiotic resistant microbes are discharged into wastewater from people taking antibiotics who have drug resistant bacteria. Through a 12-month pilot in Leicester, the project will combine AI, clinical data, and in-sewer monitoring to identify resistance trends – working to support public health protection across the UK.

Splitting Biogas, Multiplying Value – led by United Utilities Water in partnership with Tarmac, Levidian Nanosystems, Concretene, Severn Trent Water and others – £8,922,380. 

Transforming wastewater biogas into clean-burning hydrogen and graphene to unlock greater value from bioresources. Building on earlier research, the project will scale up its technology and assess its carbon impact, commercial potential, and practical applications.

SuDS through Streetworks Market (SSM) – led by Thames Water, in partnership with Greater London Authority (GLA) – £6,869,054. 

Developing a market-based approach to install Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) such as rain gardens during street works and reduce flood risk from heavy rainfall. The project will connect organisations that require flood resilience with utility companies already carrying out excavations, improving the efficiency and scale of SuDS delivery by integrating them into post-excavation restoration and repair plans. It aims to create a framework that could be applied more widely across the UK to benefit communities across the country.

Waste Not Want Not: Water Coagulant Recovery for Chemical Resilience in Waste – led by Severn Trent Water in partnership with with Nijhuis Saur Industries, WRM, Yorkshire Water, Welsh Water and others – £1,701,203. 

To turn raw water into purified and safe water for drinking, the treatment process uses coagulants like iron and alum to remove impurities. The resulting chemical residues are filtered out along with solid contaminants like silt, clay, and organic matter – a mixture called drinking water treatment sludge (DWTS). The project aims to recover iron-based coagulants from DWTS for re-use to strengthen chemical resilience in wastewater treatment. And as phosphorus removal (which also relies on coagulants) increases across the sector, the project will pioneer a circular solution that could enable water companies to self-supply coagulants at less than half the cost and carbon of commercial products.