Contracts for Innovation: NI Water: Wastewater Sludge Management

NI Water is a Government Owned Company, established in April 2007.  It is responsible for providing the water and sewage services for the whole of Northern Ireland.  That means it supplies 560 million litres of water a day for almost 1.8 million customers, as well as treating 320 million litres of wastewater each day.

As an output of the treatment of wastewater, NI Water also produces around 40k tonnes (dry weight) of sewage sludge per annum.  Currently this sludge is thickened, dewatered and transported to Belfast for incineration. This is a costly (both financially and in terms of carbon due to process emissions, energy use and transport) but necessary process.  For example, the sludge process within a typical Wastewater Treatment Works can be up to 50% of the operational spend.

At a time of considerable pressure to reduce operational expenditure, and to meet carbon emissions reductions, NI Water is looking to innovative solutions, technologies and products that can help it reduce its sludge costs and carbon footprint significantly.

The Challenge

The aim of this challenge is to improve the sludge quality so that it can be de-watered beyond 30% dry solids to reduce transport and provide operational efficiencies whilst reducing carbon and lining up with NI Water’s long term Sludge Strategy.  The baseline is currently circa 20% dry solids.  An additional benefit would be to reduce the volume of sludge produced and transported to the incinerator.  NI Water is also interested in any other technologies and ideas that can reduce the cost of sludge management.

Innovative solutions would need to be proposed and tested in order to exceed the existing baseline, de-water beyond 30% dry solids, in order to significantly improve current sludge management including transportation, carbon reductions and complementing NI Water’s long term Sludge Strategy.

NI Water is also interested in any other innovative technologies and ideas that can reduce the cost of sludge management.

Funding

This competition has a total budget of £135,000 ex VAT for Phase 1 work. It is anticipated that three bidders will be selected; each of the successful bidders will receive an amount in accordance with their bid, but subject to a maximum amount per bidder for 3 suppliers to the value of £45,000 (exclusive of VAT, if chargeable).

These awards will be made using the Contracts for Innovation delivery mechanism. Any organisation may apply as long as they can demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, i.e. the application must include a plan to commercialise the results.

A briefing event will be held on Thursday 14th November 2024, 11:00 – 12:30 (UTC). Click here to register for the briefing event.