In many ways the water industry is at the forefront of good environmental management, as it seeks to deliver a sustainable water cycle in the context of the earth’s natural water balance (see figure). Nevertheless the industry has a substantial carbon footprint: energy costs for treatment and pumping are the highest of any industry sector. This and various inefficiencies – coupled with some domestic, industrial and agricultural customer behaviours – potentially limit the green credentials and sustainability of the water cycle.

Promoting innovation that targets energy saving, reduced pollution and overall sustainability are amongst the key themes of ACQUEAU, the EUREKA Cluster established in 2010 to support industry driven R&D in the water sector.
The rapidly changing developments and innovations in information and communication technologies (ICT) have a key part to play in helping the water sector to deliver green technologies and sustainable operations. This has been recognised across the EUREKA Clusters: a working group on “Water and ICT” has been established, which includes representation from Catrene, ITEA2, and Celtic-Plus.
This cluster has particularly identified the issues of water distribution and sewerage infrastructure, which is highly distributed and mostly underground. Potential areas for innovation include:
■ Power supply for remote equipment/instrumentation: energy harvesting and batteries
■ Integrated sensors: low-power devices for monitoring quantity and quality parameters
■ The “Water Bus”: Low power devices for wireless communication/protocols.
The Water and ICT working group is expected to hold a number of communication events in autumn 2011.
ACQUEAU’s strategic roadmap (“the Blue Book”) has been developed by water industry leaders with particular reference to the strategic research agenda of the Water supply and sanitation Technology Platform (WssTP). There is a focus on 9 major water components within the water cycle:
■ Water resources and alternative sources
■ Water treatment
■ Water distribution
■ Customer
■ Agriculture
■ Industry
■ Wastewater treatment
■ Bio-solids and other sludges
■ Urban drainage and wastewater collection

For 2010 to 2012, 5 major programme themes were identified for key technological needs:
■ Membrane technologies
■ Real-time system management (RTSM)
■ Sustainable wastewater treatment
■ Materials for pipes and coatings
■ Disinfection and oxidation with low environmental footprint.

In the first call period to December 2010 (Calls 1 & 2), 2 projects on membrane technologies and 5 projects on RTSM were labelled, with a total budget of 23 million euros.
LEMEDIS (L

ow Energy Membrane Distillation) is an example of a project that specifically targets energy savings in membrane-based water treatment, and brings together membrane technology companies and an end user across France and Germany.
DUTS (Development of open, Ultra-low-energy, wireless and low-cost Telecontrol System) is a particular example of a project which targets the themes identified by the Water and ICT working group detailed earlier. This project brings to­gether small to medium technology enterprises and larger end users across Spain and France.
ACQUEAU’s Call 3, launched in January 2011, specifically invited proposals on the theme of sustainable wastewater treatment. The main objective of this call is to support the development of the municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of the future (2020). This plant will achieve a neutral or positive energy balance that can be easily combined with a very low carbon footprint, whilst delivering improved wastewater treatment performance and by-product recovery. In order to develop a low energy WWTP, the call focuses on innovative solutions for increasing the energy efficiency of wastewater treatment steps as well as measures for internal energy recovery or energy production.
ACQUEAU and the EUREKA ICT clusters are not alone in promoting pan-European collaborative research in this area. The EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) has also identified the need for collaborative ICT research for Sustainability and has specifically launched a sub-topic on “ICT for efficient water resource management”.

Conclusion

There have been huge global advances in the use of leading-edge technology in water supply and wastewater treatment over the last 30 years. This has brought improved water quality and substantially reduced environmental pollution which is critical to a sustainable water cycle, but at the same time has increased energy demand by the sector. It is these challenges that European industry and institutes will seek to respond to in the short term.

You can find more information at
www.acqueau.eu