Yorkshire Water has secured two wins in the sixth round of Ofwat's Water Breakthrough Challenge, with funding awarded to its PipeUP data-sharing platform and its Carbon Harvesting for Energy (CH4NGE) wastewater treatment trial.

PipeUP will create a secure, universal platform to help UK water companies, suppliers and academics share data and knowledge, initially targeting leakage. Led by Yorkshire Water with Tetra Tech, HAL Group, the Universities of Sheffield and Southampton, and water company partners including Thames Water and United Utilities, the collaboration has received £1.5m.

The sector-wide initiative focuses on improving access to and interoperability of existing datasets rather than building new analytics tools, aiming to speed up leak detection, cut waste, minimise disruption and protect the environment. A Yorkshire Water–funded proof of concept with Tetra Tech has already shown that linking acoustic, repair and network data is both technically feasible and operationally valuable.

Katrina Flavell, Innovation Technical Specialist at Yorkshire Water, said: "Doing the right thing and delivering real value for our customers means laying strong foundations; this is what PipeUP aims to do. It looks to provide the basis for UK water companies and commercial service providers to innovate, drive down leakage, and provide great value and service for our customers.

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"Bringing data together in a consistent way and providing easier access to that data will support and encourage broader innovation that will help water companies make informed, smart decisions. For customers, this fast-track to innovation should help water companies to find and fix leakage faster, reduce wastage and lead to more sustainable use of water resources."

CH4NGE has been awarded £1.6m and is led by Yorkshire Water in partnership with Xylem and Cranfield University, which will provide performance analysis, benchmarking and validation. The project will pilot a new approach to wastewater treatment by capturing more carbon at the primary stage to generate additional renewable energy, lower energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the activated sludge process.

A 12‑month pilot of Xylem's Taron© filter will gather data, while system modelling will assess how the innovation could cut costs, improve environmental outcomes and support the sector’s Net Zero ambition. Capturing more carbon earlier is expected to lower the organic load on secondary treatment, reduce aeration energy demand and stabilise the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, helping to limit nitrous oxide formation during denitrification.

Richard Kershaw, R&D innovation wastewater programme manager, Yorkshire Water, said: "Adopting Xylem's Taron© filter technology to capture more carbon earlier in the wastewater treatment process will both cut and create energy. Cranfield University will carry a full lifecycle analysis along with bench-scale anaerobic digestion and activated sludge trials. These will quantify biogas potential, assess nutrient removal, and identify any associated risks such as carbon-limited denitrification and nitrous oxide emissions, critical for validating downstream impacts."

Jonny Newman, Chief Engineer Integrated Solutions, Xylem Water Infrastructure, said: "The CH4NGE project will use Xylem’s proven Taron® filter in a new application, aiming to capture far more carbon right at the start of treatment than traditional gravity treatment. The recovered carbon can then be diverted to anaerobic digestion, where it is turned into biogas, a valuable source of renewable fuel. CH4NGE has the potential to be a catalyst for water companies to reduce energy use in wastewater treatment and deliver more efficient and sustainable services to their customers."