Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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The Knowledge: rainwater management www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | AugusT 2017 | 27 T ranslating research into usable outputs yielding benefits for society is never easy, but researchers from the University of Exeter's Centre for Water Systems are taking the rainwater management scene by storm – founding two innovative spin-out enterprises supported by a range of organisations and catalysing change in the offer to market by developing and testing a range of new products and tools. Research into alternative water supplies such as rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems has been ongoing in the Centre for over a decade, since Professor David Butler joined in 2006 from Imperial College London. Rainwater spin-out companies offer innovative path Researchers from the university of Exeter's Centre for Water systems are putting the latest rainwater harvesting and suDs thinking into practice via two innovative spin-out enterprises By DR SaRah WaRD, PeteR Melville-ShReeve & PROF. DaviD ButleR univERsiTy of ExETER In recent years, Dr Sarah Ward and Pete Melville-Shreeve have in turn added to the rainwater research base through their doctoral studies, which Ward completed in 2010 and Melville-Shreeve will complete in the coming months. Both returned to academia a'er stints in the water industry (at a water company and consultancy, respectively) and were keen to produce practical applications from their research. Hence in 2015, both established spin-out companies to embed their research in practice to generate impact. Dr Ward's enterprise, RainShare (www. rainshare.co.uk), is run using a social enterprise philosophy and explores service innovation to generate multiple gain through sharing roof runoff across a portfolio of RWH services representing fresh new business models. Since 2014, RainShare has received funding and support from social enterprise specialists UnLtd to install a pilot scheme in Exeter, business mentoring from start-up specialists Canopy and most recently, a comprehensive package from InnovateUK's Women in Innovation scheme. Challenging conventional ways of sharing and trading runoff, RainShare also aims to reconnect communities with water through the highlighting of everyday practices that don't need potable (mains) tap water – like irrigating gardens and allotments, flushing toilets and washing cars. Ahead of the curve in terms of where rainwater management in the UK currently is, RainShare is currently collecting data from the pilot installation, which will help prove the business case for further schemes – essential for getting to the early-adopting 1% who will immediately benefit from RainShare's services. The pilot installation diverts runoff from the roof of a house to adjacent allotments to enable plants to be watered without the use of mains water and keeping rainwater out of sewers. Working with Transition Town initiatives in the local area, the aim is for the next installation to be larger in scale – such as sharing runoff between terraced housing and a community centre or between a warehouse and an office block. Meanwhile, Melville-Shreeve's enterprise, Over the Air Analytics (OTA), was established to provide turn-key retrofit sustainable drainage (SuDS) installations. The OTA team deliver rainwater management installations on a bespoke basis using in-house design so'ware which builds on R&D completed at the Centre for Water Systems. Furthermore, OTA has developed a real-time monitoring system Water storage used in Rainshare's pilot installation in Exeter A recent oTA installation. Rainwater is avail- able for the community to re-use in their green space, while the live data stream enables oTA to maximise the system's stormwater management benefits.