Thames Water, the embattled utilities outfit currently losing more than 600m litres worth of water every day and which has pumped more than 72bn-litres-worth of untreated sewage into the Thames since 2020, has won an innovation award run by the regulator.
Thames Water will receive £16.9m “to examine how technologies like robotics and trenchless repair methods could help fix leaks in the future without the need to dig trenches and all the associated disruption this causes.”
The regulator’s ‘Water Breakthrough Challenge’ dishes out £40m worth of prizes to Britain’s water companies, with the money coming from taxpayers’ pockets.
Earlier this week it was reported that Ofwat was also considering slashing the scale of fines it levies on water companies for poor performance so that financially “stressed” water companies could invest the money instead.
Feargal Sharkey, the rock star turned water campaigner, was stunned by the plan.
“Stressed? Every single river in England is polluted: that is stressed. Beaches from Blackpool to Wales to Cornwall to Kent are sewage stricken and abandoned by families: that is stressed,” he told City A.M.
“Thousands of households ordered to boil their water, children hospitalised and people gathering sea water to flush their loo: that is stressed. Should this plan come to pass, we’ll know the only thing “stressed” in the water sector is the intellect of those sat around Ofwat’s boardroom table. It has become a cathedral to mediocrity, and needs tearing down to its foundations and rebuilt.”
Thames Water is in desperate financial difficulty, but that has not stopped its parent company paying dividends to other companies within its complicated corporate structure.
Those dividends total more than £200m over the last five years. Meanwhile, the combined group is now sinking in around £14.7bn in debt.
The firm has been lobbying the regulator for the ability to charge higher bills to address its financial black hole and invest in its network.
Nevil Muncaster, Engineering and Asset Director, from Thames Water said of the breakthrough prize: “We are constantly striving to evolve our business, and find new ways to do things better for the benefit of our customers and the environment. This funding will be invaluable in helping us progress some of our most exciting and innovative ideas, ones that really could change the water industry for the better.”
Helen Campbell, Senior Director, Ofwat said: “There are big challenges in the water industry that must be solved, some are well known and others are less so. In our fourth Water Breakthrough Challenge we called for solutions with potential to deliver wide-scale, transformational change for customers, society and the environment – and that’s exactly what today’s winners have done.
“From raingardens to prevent flooding to green energy from treated sewage, innovations to cut the water sector’s carbon footprint to robots that patrol the pipe network, the winners are all helping shape a more sustainable and efficient water sector,” she continued.