Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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Vacuum and Overpressure Solutions for Waste Water Treatment Vacuum pumps, blowers and compressors from Busch are used wherever effi ciency, reliability and safety are crucial factors. That's why wastewater facilities all over the world use products by Busch. Set new standards with the supply of vacuum and overpressure for the economical and reliable operation of your wastewater treatment facility. Use our extensive know-how for your success. Busch (UK) Ltd. +44 (0)1952 677432 l sales@busch.co.uk www.busch.co.uk 6 | SEPTEMBER 2018 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk The talk: opinion MARK MALCOLM DIRECTOR, DESIGN & BUILD BLACK & VEATCH EUROPE Nurturing supply chain innovation With Ofwat keen to encourage innovation from the water companies, this is best done by finding and nurturing fresh thinking from the water industry supply chain W ater industry innovation is more oen evolution than revolution. Water utilities' central role in public health and environmental protection means they are understandably cautious; and research budgets are tightening constantly. How, then, can the supply chain help nurture new ideas? Ofwat has set out four areas upon which it expects water companies' PR19 business plans to focus: affordability, customer service, resilience and innova- tion. Of these, innovation is potentially the most overarching, as a mechanism for delivering the other three: "We see innovation as essential to enabling the sector to deliver more of what matters for its customers," according to David Black, Ofwat's Senior Director of Water 2020. Ofwat is keen to incentivise innova- tion, making it clear that the fruits of effective innovation should benefit the water companies as well as their custom- ers: "Companies with the most innovative and ambitious plans delivering real ben- efits for customers and raising the bar for others will receive an additional return," Black has said. In an industry so dependent upon its supply chain, however, innovation will not come from the water companies alone. Among the stimuli for innovation will be a price review which breaks with the past in making the creation of new assets the solution of last, rather than first, resort. This is due to a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) in PR19 that is expected to be at the lowest level since privatisation; coupled with an anticipated fall in revenues due to downward pres- sures on customer bills. Although data analytics and digital tools have a central role in many innova- tions, they are oen a means to innova- tion rather than an end in themselves. At its most basic level, innovation is about new ways of delivering, requiring open- ness to change and willingness to take risk. To incubate the sort of innovations that could help water companies succeed in Ofwat's four areas of expectation, Black & Veatch has created an Innovation Hub, a new extention to the way the company fosters new ways of working. The hub is currently addressing four areas: Technol- ogy Innovation Partnerships, Alternative Funding Models, Smart Maintenance and Alternative Ways of Working. Technology Innovation As a new way of making new technologies available for water companies we have taken a leaf from Dragon's Den. Pre- screened, early-stage, small-scale technol- ogy companies discuss their technical innovation with our Technical Review Group of water and wastewater experts. We partner with those offering the most promising technologies by offering discounted or free engineering services that will help the equipment achieve utility scale and interoperability; work which may incorporate utility trials. We will then use our scale to help bring the