More funding for Climate Innovation Challenge announced

Intelligent Water Networks has focused on being a catalyst for the transformation of the water industry, encouraging the creation of tomorrow’s water innovation today. This includes its role as the custodian of the Water Minister’s Climate Innovation Challenge.

With its Annual Members Conference taking place at the end of July, Intelligent Water Networks (IWN) had a fantastic opportunity to showcase the work done over the last 12 months. Hosted at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University’s Storey Hall, the theatre was full of members of the Victorian water industry. Postgraduate students, water utility executives, and business leaders flocked to the venue to learn what has been achieved.

IWN Chair and North East Water Managing Director Jo Murdoch opened the event with a message from Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing regarding the Water Minister’s Climate Innovation Challenge.

“Victoria’s water sector is leading the nation on climate action because of its commitment to collaborative transformation,” she said. “We have near-term net zero targets that can only be achieved because of your willingness to innovate and to share what you’re learning. I commend Intelligent Water Networks for its work fostering the best transformation involving learning and growing together. This is why I asked the IWN last year to establish my Climate Innovation Challenge. The 2023 Water Ministers Climate Innovation Challenge exceeded my expectations and identified ideas to test locally and right now with potential global impacts.

“As a result, I have decided to increase funding for my challenge to almost triple what was announced at the event last year. The prize pool for 2024 now stands at $255,000, and the challenge is now officially open for entries. I invite everyone to think big, be innovative and keep working together.”

This news was met with applause by all in attendance.

Research partnerships

Emeritus Professor Felicity Roddick from RMIT University spoke about the importance of collaboration and transformation in addressing complex water research and industry challenges. She linked this back to Storey Hall’s history as the host of the feminist pacifist organisation, the Women’s Political Association. It was the venue for many of Melbourne’s largest anti-conscription public meetings and rallies.

In reflecting on the transformative nature of the collaboration that has taken place in Storey Hall in the last 137 years, Roddick looked up the word transformation.

“Many might think that transformation is about something big,” she said. “However, when I looked it up, it said change. It can be a small or large change, and the dictionary presented examples of both change sizes.”

This inspired Professor Roddick to examine some of the changes that have occurred through collaboration with RMIT University in the water space. She discussed the taste and odour challenges that Goulburn Valley Water had faced in the small town of Euroa. Feedwater to Euroa Water Treatment Plant contains increasingly high levels of natural organic matter (NOM), which were determined to cause its strong earthy odour. A multidisciplinary approach was used to evaluate the coagulation process to better remove the taste and odour (T&O) causing organics from water supplied to the local towns.

“By taking a multidisciplinary approach, the team found that there was a connection between rainfall patterns and the impact of the coagulant,” Roddick said. “With the vast amount of data collected on the coagulant regulation process under various conditions, the team could use that as a basis for developing an improved process for chemical dosing.”

Executive panel

The IWN executive team was next to speak in a panel discussion. Jo Murdoch (Chair of IWN and Managing Director of North East Water), Jo Lim (CEO of VicWater), Sarah Cumming (Gippsland Water), Heather Griffith (DEECA), Andrew Jeffers (Managing Director of Wannon Water), and Jeff Haydon (Managing Director of Central Highlands Water) were the members present. The panel facilitator was Victor Perton, director at Yarra Valley Water and Chief Optimism Officer for the Centre for Optimism.

The panel discussed topics like passion for innovation and transformation, the connection between fun and innovation, and the challenges of effectively communicating innovation to different stakeholder groups.

VicWater CEO Jo Lim discussed the opportunities that have arisen to reduce the carbon footprint of Victorian water utilities. Lim is extremely passionate about this area, particularly the societal approach to carbon.

“We know much more about the carbon offset market than we did two and a half years ago,” she said. “It’s still an evolving, dynamic, and emerging market with many changes in government regulations, particularly at the federal level. The benefits of collaboration saw us bring in experts from across the industry in Victoria. After about two and a half years of dedicated work, we are now in the market with an expression of interest (EOI) for carbon offsets on behalf of most of our water corporations.”

Digital transformation

The next presentation was from Mark Williams, the Managing Director of Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water (GWMWater). He spoke about GWMWater’s digital transformation journey.

Williams provided important background information on GWMWater, which gave critical insight into the challenges rural water utilities face in Australia. The GWMWater network covers about 25 per cent of Victoria.

“That means we have a significant water network central to the community,” he said. “We earn about $70 million a year in annual revenue, with a bit of growth each year. There are certainly opportunities for the expansion of housing in the region. However, we needed to make sure that, coming out of the separation of Grampians Water and Goulburn Valley Water in 2004, we made the tens of thousands of kilometres of pipelines work.”

GWMWater’s digital transformation had many parts, but not all were customer-facing. This was part of the launchpad for the business transformation strategy.

“Based on essential business indicators, we needed to consolidate our back office systems and scale our network, among other areas,” Williams said. With $2.7 billion in assets under our stewardship and 62,000 square kilometres of service area to cover, we need to ensure that we can cover that footprint exceptionally well.”

Based on that, technology has been a critical enabler of operational improvement and business efficiency, which ensures that GWMWater invests well and looks after the best interests of its customers.

Keynote speech

One of the event’s highlights was the keynote address from Harry Seah, the Deputy Chief Executive (Operations) at PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency. Seah is also the Director of Technology and Water Quality at PUB. He addressed the audience on how collaboration and partnering were at the core of PUB Singapore’s transformation.

“Singapore has 730 square kilometres of land,” he said. “We can’t change that. Where we are at is based on today’s best practices, particularly regarding water management. Singapore is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. That is because we do not have land to store water. Singapore is blessed with a lot of rain but nowhere to store it. Singapore is also a city-state, meaning it has no resources like oil. Everything generates waste, so we need to find ways to manage and dispose of that waste.”

Singapore expects its water use to double by 2060, with domestic use dropping from about 50 to 30 per cent.

“The challenge for us is from an energy point of view,” Seah said. “Can we deliver the equivalent of two times today’s water demand on the existing footprint? We think it is possible, and I think we are about 80 per cent of the way there.”

One of the issues facing Singapore is its small population. With a small population, finding the right talent to work within PUB is hard. As a result, PUB has had to open itself to talent from billions of people around the world while also exploring new technology.

“We allocate about $20 million of our budget every year for all our research and development,” said Seah. “Being a first adopter comes with risks, but we need to ensure that we are adjusting to new paradigms. We do our best to derisk around new technology, as we can price that into the services we provide.”

IWN program roadmaps

To finish off the day, each program operated by IWN presented its work in a wide range of areas. The programs are:

Alumni
Asset Management and Optimisation
Circular Economy
Contaminants of Concern
Data and Analytics
Digital Metering Systems
Diversity and Inclusion Technology
Edge Technologies
Energy and Carbon
Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration
Pipeline Intelligence
Safety Innovation

The Champions Program also seeks to promote innovative practices and develop professional and leadership skills within the water industry. Champions are supported with a series of workshops, professional one-on-one mentoring, and coaching. They are also an important conduit between IWN and the member water corporations, helping IWN engage on a broader scale.

What’s coming?

IWN Program Director Jason Cotton closed the conference by revealing the IWN Hackathon. It presents an opportunity for people in the water industry to use data to tell a story and to explore how data and analytics can help water businesses better care for the environment. Melbourne Water hosted the Hackathon on 20 September.

For more information, visit www.iwn.org.au