World Water Day 2017

Dŵr Uisce would like to bring to your attention the various incredible stories related to initiatives to create a world with clean water.

Water in Focus at Dwr Cymru Welsh Water's Innovation Event

Dwr Cymru have held their annual Innovation event for the last number of years, and it was clear from the 400 individuals in attendance on January 31st that innovation is key to Welsh Water delivering their 2050 Operational Visions.

The theme of this years event was 'Resilience through innovation' and it is positive to see that Dwr Cymru are focusing on resilience across their services, from creating smart networks through the deployment of thousands of new monitors to enhancing customer engagement to reduce consumption and improve efficiency.

Of interest to the Dwr Uisce team, their continued investment in renewable energy and their openness to undertaking research was evident as their collaborations with a number of Universities and research institutes in the UK were presented in the afternoon workshop sessions.

Dwr Cymru Welsh Water have ambitious plans for the future, we hope that our Dwr Uisce energy recovery work can feed into these future plans for Wales.

Dŵr Uisce has a new team member! Say hello to Andrew.

Dr Andrew Norton

Dr Andrew Norton specializes in developing transparent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods and has worked on renewable materials R&D for over 15 years. During which time he has assessed a wide range of industrial, agricultural and forest based systems, from food commodities to high-tech materials. He has enjoyed working with and advising the likes of Imperial College, Lotus Engineering, the World Bank, DEFRA and UPM Tillhill.

As well as leading the development of LCA and Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools for the CAP’EM (Cycle Assessment Procedure for Eco-Materials) Project, he is also kept busy producing and verifying EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) for a wide range of commercial clients. He advises the European Commission in regards to the production of the PEF (Product Environmental Footprint) category rules and sits on the British Standards Institution (BSI) committee for sustainable and bio-materials.

Andrew joins the Dŵr Uisce team as a Research Officer, based at the Bangor University. As a highly regarded LCA practitioner and consultant experienced in sustainable materials, Andrew will be a valuable asset to the project.

A very warm welcome, Andrew, from the entire Dwr Uisce team!

Dŵr Uisce conference publications in 2017 about our smart specialisation cluster

The 4th International EurOMA Sustainable Operations and Supply Chains Forum 2017 is to be held in Milan, Italy on the 27 and 28th of February, where a paper titled "Building collaboration within a smart specialization cluster through action learning" has been accepted as a working paper to be presented during the conference. To read the abstract and full paper, click here.  

For information regarding the EurOMA Forum 2017, click here.

The EurOMA Forum 2017 will be held at Politechnico di Milano, in Italy.

The 24th Innovation and Product Development Management Conference (IPDMC) will be held from Sunday, June 11th to Tuesday, June 13th, 2017, at Reykjavik University in Reykjavik, Iceland, where a paper titled "Developing integrated low-carbon and smart energy innovations in water and energy: creating a smart specialization cluster" has been accepted to be presented during the conference. To read the abstract, click here.

For information regarding the IPDM Conference, click here.

The IPDMC 2017 will be held at Reykjavik University, in Iceland.

Dŵr Uisce in an Irish collaboration with the National Federation of Group Water Schemes

Dŵr Uisce has established a collaboration with the National Federation of Group Water Schemes (NFGWS), as featured in their Winter 2016 Newsletter.

To read, click here.

From left: Barry Deane (NFGWS), David Ferras, Vanajah Siva, Aonghus Mc Nabola, Daniele Novara (Dwr Uisce, TCD), and Colm Brady (NFGWS), 4th Nov 2016, Tullamore.

Dwr Uisce contributes to pre-consultation workshop on BEIS Recoverable Heat Support Programme

Heat recovery has a part to play in the Dwr Uisce project for a more energy efficient water sector. As such, a member of the Dwr Uisce team, Dr John Gallagher from Bangor University, attended a pre-consultation on the future of heat recovery in the UK which took place in London on Tuesday December 7th and was organised by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

 In 2014, the Industrial Decarbonisation and Energy Efficiency Roadmaps to 2050 identified 48 TWh of potential for waste heat recovery in 8 key energy sectors. The proposed programme for Recoverable Heat Support will be delivered in the coming years to support businesses financially in delivering feasibility assessments and implementing technology solutions to promote heat recovery in the UK. The programme will cooperate with other energy efficiency UK initiatives, such as the Heat Networks Investment Project, so that the UK can deliver targets set out in their energy efficiency roadmaps for 2050.

 For the Dwr Uisce project, the main points highlighted to BEIS was ensuring the smaller organisations in Wales can access this support for funding feasibility studies and installing technologies for heat recovery. In addition, the environmental impacts associated with waste discharge presents unknown challenges that needs to be considered in the feasibility of these projects.

 The Dwr Uisce project is funded through the ERDF Interreg Ireland Wales Co-operation Programme (2014-2020).