Scaling and sustaining water utilities fit for the UK’s future

Written by Ritesh Shrivastava

January 02, 2025

6 minute read

Scaling innovation in the UK water sector is critical. Read on to see how you can achieve operational efficiencies, accelerate sustainability, and secure a water-positive future.

Innovation is everywhere

Ofwat’s Innovation Consultation gave high praise to water companies which, they said, “have been developing ideas that have the potential to bring incremental improvements to water company operations – supported by a mature approach to finding, assessing and encouraging technological innovations, with dedicated innovation teams managing the innovation process”.

It’s true that the UK water industry has an appetite for innovating technology- and data-enabled solutions. Most water utilities have been actively running pilots to test new ways of driving high levels of improvements not just in IT, but in core operations. Indeed, there’s been an unprecedented level of investment in technology, with the latest focus on smart metering, river quality monitoring and IT/OT integration.

Fail to scale

The issue is that for decades, the industry has faced challenges in getting from pilot to roll-out:

Due to the high penalties and serious consequences of failure, the water sector has developed a risk-averse culture, with a ‘follower’ rather than ‘first’ innovation mindset;
Decision-making and adoption is complex, involves a lot of stakeholders and is slowed by changing regulations and complicated governance;
Trials don’t always answer all questions for all stakeholders, so onward decisioning can be held up;
Innovation strategies can fail to look far enough ahead to match large investment with long-term challenges, resulting in ‘pockets of innovation’ within companies that aren’t joined up;
Middle-managers often lack a senior sponsor for step-change strategic innovations, so can tend to opt for incremental technology-led tactical ideas;
All-too-often procurement of solutions from SMEs is challenging as many don’t meet the supplier requirements, so successfully trialled innovations can be left unadopted;
Design and governance cycles are so long that technology often becomes obsolete; and
A lack of the internal expertise, resources and budget required to scale – or the inability to quantify what’s needed – can result in failure to take innovations beyond one-site successes.

Tough times, transformational partnerships

There’s no doubt that the water industry has had a tough time, has had to make tough choices, and faces no let-up in the pressure to overcome tough challenges ahead.

But, as we’ve learnt through 60 years of supporting critical national infrastructural organisations across diverse sectors in the UK, tough times can forge transformative partnerships.

That’s why Fujitsu UK is bringing that proprietary approach to partnership to the water industry.

Secure, scale, sustain

We’re applying our state-of-the-art technologies, global financial stability, reputation for being ’a safe pair of hands’ and our commitment to end-to-end accountability, to helping water utilities do the three things most critical to their future, and the UK’s: ‘Secure, scale and sustain.’ Of course, the first priority of every water utility must be water security. Which is why Part [1] of this 3-part blog series is about how Fujitsu can partner with water utilities to protect them against the increasingly sophisticated, threats and risks to their network, infrastructure, water supply, and even business model. But with a security strategy in play, it’s time to set up workstreams to scale innovations that can drive truly sustainable long-term transformation.

Scaling from innovation to integration

What’s differentiating about Fujitsu is that we can help our customers get beyond constant beta mode and take that next crucial step. Through our proven and new technologies, we can enable, derisk and accelerate their innovation journey. We can co-create the roadmap from proof-of-concept to roll-out, and business case it. We can support them in planning ahead for organisational continuity, while at the same time scaling securely without the risks, costs and loss of trust that come with failure. And we can work with them to integrate data- and tech-enabled innovations into their legacy systems, processes and culture – at scale – taking responsibility for not just adhering to a contract, but delivering their outcomes.

Sustaining advantage

The water industry is also under increasing pressure to scale innovations not only securely, but also sustainably. With sustainability at the core of our global purpose, Fujitsu are world leaders in the development, delivery and deployment of sustainable technologies. In fact, while our competitors talk about digital transformation (DX), we’ve gone further to develop Sustainability Transformation (SX). This proprietary approach has earned us a sector-leading list of sustainability awards, top rankings and high ratings for our sustainable vision, practice and innovations.

Scaling securely and sustainably

Among the market-leading SX technologies that Fujitsu is deploying to enable, derisk and accelerate our water customers’ innovation journeys is digital twinning. Fujitsu has pioneered the use of digital twinning in critical national infrastructure organisations in the UK. Now we’re working with engineers in water and waste water utilities to use this fast-evolving technology, aligned with others, to:

Provide precise simulations of innovations so we can test performance, predict fail-points and highlight anomalies;
Use AI and machine learning to access advanced data analytics so we can model diverse scenarios at scale, test compatibility with legacy systems and anticipate unplanned-for operational changes;
Inform fast decisioning relating to optimisation and roll-out across the organisation, adapting where needed for geographic, infrastructural or process differences;
Advance sustainability by simulating and analysing environmental impacts, optimising water usage, reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency, all in alignment with global sustainability goals;

Outcomes, not just technologies

Of course, as an SX partner and not just a technology vendor, Fujitsu keeps every partnership’s focus on the question: what outcomes are we delivering?

In the water utility sector, Fujitsu is committed to working with our utility transformation customers to achieve some ambitious outcomes. Among them are to:

Loading component...

Drive operational savings of 25% through efficiencies and improved assets life;
Accelerate sustainability to bring net zero deadlines forward, for example, from 2040 to 2038;
Access data securely, ensuring compliance and data integrity.

Now and in the future

We can help leaders drive digital disruption in utilities now and we’re already working on emerging technologies that will continue to do so at every milestone from here to 2035. We’re not only solving the problems at hand - like Combined Sewer Overflows, Pollution and Leakages - but also building resilience and setting the industry up for future innovations and sustainable operational efficiencies. Our next gen digital twins will offer dynamic, real-time models that adapt instantly to changes, empowering utilities to make quick, informed decisions during roll-out of their innovations, enhancing emergency response and operational resilience. They will also enable greater collaboration across utility sectors on their digital transformation journey, such as integrating water and energy systems for more holistic resource management. Other breakthrough technologies are in the works too. Like quantum computing, which will resolve vast or highly complex optimisations from pilot to rollout, in seconds rather than weeks. Then there’s our game-changing microchip, codenamed Monaka, slated for launch in 2027; our next-gen supercomputer, due in 2028; not to mention, our 6G technologies, expected around 2030.

Loading component...

From ambition to action

While innovation is vital to achieving the UK’s ambition to be water secure, or even water positive, it requires far greater focus, direction and action. And it needs this now. The decision by Ofwat and Defra to accelerate their £1.6 billion investment in transformation1 means water companies must speed up their innovation-to-integration timelines. While innovating new solutions that solve seemingly insurmountable problems in new ways, they must also look to improving proven solutions in innovative ways to drive efficiencies, reduce waste and cut costs.

And with a less-is-more approach, they must get behind those data- and tech-enabled innovation workstreams that are insight-fuelled, secure and sustainable by design, and deliver the impacts that their stakeholders are waiting for. Not only regulators, policy makers and the media, but their customers and the environment their business models depend on. After all, water may have defined our island nation’s history. But what will define our future is how we secure, scale and sustain fresh, clean water, together, starting where we are now.

[1] Ofwat, Corporate Press Release, 3rd April 2023