Feature Stories

Driving Innovative Solutions

Marketplace    30 October 2020


Wessex Water believes that driving innovation could help optimise their operations and resolve some of the difficulties they face. In line with United Nations SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Wessex Water strives to be a leader in driving technological advancement through innovation to provide a better service that could make the people feel safe.

In 2018, Wessex Water’s efforts in innovation resulted in a way to utilise robotic technology in trenchless sewer repairs called, the “Re-rounder”. This year, Wessex Water went further and collaborated with Headlight Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop and innovate a solution for the survey and modelling of sewer tunnels with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology.


The aim of this innovation is to mathematically discount the effects of turbulent flow and avoid man-entry, which traditionally is an expensive, dangerous and time-consuming task. This is done through the deployment of a multi-sensor system on a floating platform in a large critical sewer to conduct a high accuracy 3D survey of the asset in semi-turbulent flow (Image 1). The data collected through the survey is then processed to account for the motion of the system and utilising AI to obtain insights into the sewer’s condition to identify defects in a faster and more accurate manner (Image 2). As a result, the innovative collaboration has won Wessex Water the UK Institute of Water South West Area Innovation Awards 2020 and second place for the UK Institute of Water 2020 National Innovation Awards.

On the other hand, Wessex Water was one of the few utility companies called upon by the UK Government in the national Government-led ‘wastewater surveillance’ project which is part of an advance warning system to detect new outbreaks of coronavirus in effort to achieve SDG 11- Sustainable Cities and Communities through making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Samples are taken at a small number of water recycling centres, and these are then analysed by the UK Environment Agency laboratories to detect the presence of COVID-19 RNA in the population. Three Water Recycling Centre (WRC) sites have been identified for influent monitoring in the Wessex Water region to support the national surveillance programme:

  • Avonmouth
  • Trowbridge
  • Weymouth

Wessex Water is also supporting the University of Bath with COVID-19 surveillance research by providing influent samples from Avonmouth (Bristol) and Saltford (Bath) WRCs. The University of Bath’s research is part of a wider academic consortium of UK universities and scientific research institutes. Research developments from the consortium will be shared with the national surveillance teams to avoid duplication of work and to share knowledge in this novel field of research.