Northumbrian Water has secured funding for a project in the North East that aims to reduce both customer bills and carbon emissions.
The Fair Water Project has been awarded 拢3.8m from Ofwat鈥檚 Water Breakthrough Challenge. It will see Northumbrian Water working alongside Newcastle University, National Energy Action, Procter & Gamble and Northern Gas Networks to reduce water use and energy emissions for customers in the next four years.
The project aims to develop affordable solutions that work for a wide range of customers living in a variety of housing types, with minimal disruption to homes or habits.
It will evaluate products already being used and develop new solutions with the aim of helping people reduce water and energy use.
The knowledge gained during the project will also help minimise disruption caused to customers鈥 homes when fitting water and energy saving products into their homes, it is hoped.
Angela MacOscar, head of innovation at Northumbrian Water, said: 鈥淭his unique collaboration brings knowledge, resources and connections 鈥 which are essential for the co-creation of solutions for customers.
鈥淎long with our partners we will develop products and services that enable delivery at scale, and will also support customers, including the vulnerable and hard-to-reach, through changes that will deliver a better quality of life for them, and the outcomes that society needs.
鈥淭his will be an incredibly important project. It will not only drive us towards our net zero targets but will also help to improve the quality of life for our customers 鈥 which is why we are extremely proud that we have been granted this funding by Ofwat.鈥
Boguslaw Obara, professor of image informatics at Newcastle University鈥檚 school of computing, said: 鈥淭his is a great opportunity to bring together Newcastle University鈥檚 partners, NWG, P&G and NGN under one collaborative project partnering with NEAA that draws together different research areas which have an impact on domestic users and consumers鈥 daily lives.鈥
