Alternatives to plastic bead media – can you help? September 21st, 2021 by Wessex Water Wessex Water has a number of Biological Aerated Flooded Filter (BAFF) plants that utilise buoyant plastic bead media for wastewater treatment. There is an inherent risk of plastic loss to the environment given the media floats and can be gradually abraded over time. Abraded micro-plastics are able to evade the containment systems installed to prevent…
Water Resources Management Plan 24 – Option suggestions September 16th, 2021 by Wessex Water We need to plan ahead to ensure we have sustainable water resources to supply our customers, and are currently putting together our Water Resources Management Plan for 2025-2075. As part of this process we’re open to suggestions of ways to improve our supply demand balance and invite the market to come forward with new suggestions.…
Crude Sewage rapid chemical mixing for phosphorus removal – can you help? April 1st, 2021 by Wessex Water We are required to remove phosphorus (P) from the effluent discharges of many of our water recycling centres (WRCs). For AMP7 (2020-2025) there are a number of new or tightened discharge permits for us to meet, as identified in the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP). Our conventional approach for P removal is to employ…
Water quality customer contacts January 12th, 2021 by Wessex Water Challenge update Thank you to those who submitted suggestions for this challenge; we’ve been in touch with all companies. We had a number of suggestions for smart networks which is something we’re actively considering but not something we can jump into immediately, and for other areas where we need to develop our strategy further before exploring. …
Ion Exchange Brine Challenge July 24th, 2020 by Wessex Water *Deadline extended to Friday 18th September* Are there alternative ways to utilise waste brine from our ion exchange plants? Wessex Water has three ion exchange plants across our region allowing us to remove nitrates from high nitrate water sources when options such as catchment management or blending aren’t available to us. One of these sites…
Sewer misuse marketing challenge May 14th, 2020 by Wessex Water **Deadline extended to Friday 26th June** Calling all students! New marketing ideas wanted! The issue of sewer misuse Each year, in the Wessex Water region, we tackle over 13,000 blockages in our sewers, approximately 80% of which are caused by sewer misuse. Sewer misuse is the incorrect disposal of items by flushing down the toilet…
Acoustic leak detection December 13th, 2019 by Wessex Water Challenge update We received some interesting submissions for this challenge and explored several options. Unfortunately we were unable to take things further due to changes in the business, but will bear the suppliers who participated in mind should the need re-emerge. Background Wessex Water is able to deploy up to 800 acoustic loggers a day as…
How we can serve new developments more effectively October 30th, 2019 by Wessex Water With government targets to build upwards of 250,000 new homes a year, the number of new developments across the country is set to increase. Within the Wessex Water region we are seeing ambitious plans to increase the number of homes in the South West – a Joint Spatial Plan is being created by four of…
Intelligent sewers; can we make alarms smarter? October 3rd, 2019 by Wessex Water This challenge is now closed, but the data is still available to download on the datasets page. Read our case study to find out the outcome of the challenge. (You may also find this earlier case study of interest.) Background With the increased number of monitors in the wastewater network (mostly at combined sewer overflows;…
Keeping STWs clean with anti-fouling paint – can you help? September 10th, 2019 by Wessex Water Background Sewage treatment works, water recycling centres, waste water treatment plants – whatever you call them, the principle is the same. They treat domestic and trade waste to an appropriate level to discharge to the environment. By their very nature they accumulate dirt and debris, but we’re looking to further improve our compliance record by…
Bringing AI to sewer scanning – can you help? July 5th, 2019 by Wessex Water Challenge update Please note that as of 9th August this challenge is now closed to further entrants due to the high number of parties involved. We’ve completed trials with four companies and their offerings. We’re now looking at next steps and will update the blog in the near future with our direction. Every year Wessex…
Phosphorus removal on small sites – can you help? June 20th, 2019 by Wessex Water This challenge is now closed, but the page will remain to share the challenges that we have previously explored. Update on the challenge: A number of options were suggested – thank you to those who submitted ideas. Some were more appropriate for larger sites and have been earmarked for future consideration. Others would have had,…
Water Efficiency Marketplace Challenge June 14th, 2019 by Wessex Water This challenge is now closed, but the page will remain to share the challenges that we have previously explored. Read our case study here to find out the latest on this challenge. Supporting our customers to reduce their water consumption at home is a core part of our water efficiency programme – if approved, our 2020-25…
The business plan April 16th, 2019 by Wessex Water Our business plan for 2020-2025 sets out proposals on how we intend to further improve water and sewerage services over future years. To put our plan together we carried out our biggest ever consultation with customers, with more than 140,000 people providing feedback through surveys and independent focus groups giving their views on bills and services.…
The PSTN challenge April 10th, 2019 by Wessex Water In May 2018 OpenReach (BT) launched a consultation on the move from analogue telephony to digital voice services by 2025. We have ~2800 sites that rely on analogue PSTN (Public Switched Telephone network) services to communicate back to our central control systems. We need to replace these lines to maintain visibility and control of the…
Hampshire Avon phosphorus reduction challenge April 8th, 2019 by Wessex Water This challenge is now closed, but the page will remain to share the challenges that we have previously explored. If approved as part of our 2020-25 business plan, we’ll aim to improve the river water quality in the Hampshire Avon catchment by reducing levels of phosphorus in the water. We’re looking to the market to…
