Riventa presents compelling offset figures for Ofwat’s Water Discovery Challenge

As a finalist in the Ofwat Innovation Fund’s Water Discovery Challenge, Riventa’s Total Addressable Market assessment of maximising solar photovoltaic (PV) system efficiency for UK water industry water pumping stations, has revealed an available Net Present Value (NPV) of £3 billion.

The compelling figures, which also include a carbon offset of eight million tonnes CO2e over a project life span of 25 years, are from Riventa’s comprehensive AI-based approach to offset electricity use.

Riventa’s Co-Founder, Dr Tom Clifford, commented: “Until now, conventional Solar PV design practices don’t consider how the underlying water distribution process would, given a new lower cost source of energy, be able to change. Thanks to the capacity-building support we’ve received since being announced as a Water Discovery Challenge finalist, we’ve been able to fully explore how this limitation very much restricts the size and number of PV applications in the water industry.

“Overcoming this constraint requires the PV design process (the supplier of power) to be coupled to network optimisation pump scheduling (the consumer of power). The technical challenge is that both are interdependent; creating an iterative feedback loop within the design process, meaning that one cannot be solved without the other.”

He added: “To overcome this challenge, and unlock the additional potential of PV energy, we are utilising an Artificial Intelligence algorithm to optimise the interdependency, creating an expanded PV design, with modified network behaviour. This not only creates a four-fold increase in the Net Present Value (NPV) over ‘business-as-usual designs,’ but it also clears obstacles on the path to Net Zero.”

Riventa was one of 20 new cutting-edge solutions selected in July 2023 as a finalist by Ofwat for its Water Discovery Challenge. Riventa’s AI-based approach to offset electricity use reduces the risk and financial impact of rising energy market prices on the water sector, and ultimately the consumer.

The 20 finalists initially shared £1M in funding, as well as important capacity-building support. Up to 10 companies will go on to be awarded up to £450,000 each (as well as further additional support), to develop and test their ideas. Winners are due to be announced in February 2024.