Amount awarded: £10,000,000
Led by: Severn Trent Water
Partners: Aarhus Vand, ACWA (Nuvoda), Anglian Water Service Limited, Aston University, Atkins Ltd, Cranfield University, Dwr Cymru Cyfyngedig (Welsh Water), Explore AI Ltd, Irish Water, Melbourne Water, Northern Ireland Water Ltd., Northumbrian Water Limited, Scottish Water, Severn Trent Plc, Siemens, South West Water Limited, Southern Water Services Limited, SPRING, SUEZ Advanced Solutions UK, Thames Water Utilities Limited, United Utilities Water Limited, Wessex Water Limited, Xylem, Yorkshire Water Services Limited
See project updates on the Net Zero Hub website.
This ground-breaking project, universally supported by UK and Irish water companies plus international support from Aarhus Vand and Melbourne Water will transform a large, carbon intensive Wastewater Treatment Plant into the world’s first retro-fit carbon neutral site. Innovative suppliers are developing technologies to reduce, remove and avoid carbon. Our plan is to integrate the most promising technologies on one site for the first time – creating the ‘Net-Zero hub’ – trialing them at scale to deliver a blueprint for water companies to retro-fit their wastewater treatment plants to achieve their stretching 2030 Net-Zero commitments. This bid covers the most innovative technology to target our biggest emissions.
“Combatting the climate emergency to protect generations to come is a challenge that requires everyone to reinvent ways of working. This commitment to create the world’s first carbon neutral hub has the possibility of changing the face of wastewater treatment worldwide. The impact of this cannot be underestimated given emissions from wastewater are 80% of our operational emissions, and the hub will solve that.
“Coming together to share ideas and collaborating to combat climate change is key, that’s why we’re committed to sharing our carbon neutral hub’s blueprint with all other water companies, so wastewater treatment plants around the world can be retrofitted with these new technologies that we’re rolling out at scale.
“Bringing this innovation to Staffordshire will also bring jobs and green skills, as there are even more novel technologies in the pipeline that will be tested and refined here in years to come, thanks to the investment and support from all of our partners including Ofwat’s Innovation Fund.” – Liv Garfield, CEO, Severn Trent
Actilayer: Construction is complete. The Actilayer membrane and structures are installed on all lanes. ASP5, which is a control lane does not have the membrane fitted, his will be installed in June 2025. Commissioning activities are in progress as per the planned sequence. The impact of the Actilayer is being measured through the emissions monitoring plan, and substantial work has been undertaken since the last submittal with UV efficacy testing also ongoing. Training and handover discussions for operational teams have taken place, and snagging works are substantially complete. The draft design manual for the retrofitting of these technologies is under review. Digital Twin has been able to run a full end to end simulation of Strongford with positive results. The project is extending its site based activities through to 31st July to include more data from recent sensor installations to improve model accuracy and validate the digital twins predictions with a further 2 months of monitoring.
For more information on Net Zero Hub, take a look at the following resources:
