Building Resilience and Top Takeaways from BlueTech Forum

XPV Water Partners’ Sam Saintonge reflects on what he’s learned – and what’s been confirmed – at recent industry events.

This past June, I had the pleasure of participating in the BlueTech Forum in Vancouver. Billed “Radical Collaboration for Regeneration,” this year’s forum focused on building dynamic partnerships to achieve bold ambitions for water management and carbon emissions.

In considering my top takeaways from the conference, the overarching theme is the urgent need for our sector to build resilience. As we’ve seen during recent extreme weather events, such as the megadrought in America’s southwest, when water is vulnerable, even at a local scale, we’re all vulnerable. Many of the participants shared examples of how they’ve made that connection, how they’re working together, and how they are incorporating innovative solutions to do their part.

At XPV Water Partners, we believe that the climate crisis is a water crisis, so it’s heartening to see this message amplified at events where we can come together to share knowledge and embolden action. Here are some my top takeaways from BlueTech.

Utilities are focused on goals to hit net-zero carbon

The water sector can have a huge impact on reducing global emissions. This is not limited to reducing the amount of energy we use to treat wastewater; it’s also about reducing pollution from spills, etc. and supporting healthy water bodies. More and more, we’re seeing utilities realize the value of working together with innovative technology companies to manage and lower their emissions. Metasphere, for instance, is working closely with many UK utilities to understand their sewer networks and prevent spills, leaks, and overflows. Axius Water helps customers achieve some of the lowest phosphorous and nitrogen limits in North America. Part of the Axius portfolio of technologies includes a non-hazardous replacement to methanol for nutrient removal, which helps reduce significantly reduce a utility’s carbon footprint. And, furthermore, through programs like Isle Utilities’ Trial Reservoir, utilities are being empowered to try new solutions that are focused on net zero for the water sector.

There is still a pressing demand to do more with less

With shrinking budgets, new demand, and the rising costs of building and rehabilitating infrastructure, utilities are constantly being required to increase their efficiencies and “do more with less.” For this reason (and others), we’re seeing the water sector continue to accelerate the shift to digital solutions. In fact, companies in XPV’s portfolio that offer digital technologies, such as SmartCover and Metron-Farnier, are having record years.

In its earlier stages, SmartCover was helping utilities solve very specific problems at sites that had frequent sewer overflows. Today, customers are deploying SmartCover’s technology much faster and existing customers are putting the technology to work more broadly, to identify I&I (inflow and infiltration), optimize sewer cleaning and maintenance schedules, or manage chemical consumption, for instance. SmartCover has also recently onboarded some influential utilities to its platform, including DC Water and several leading Investor Owned Utilities.

The world is realizing that waste has value

If there’s one thing that COVID has driven home for the water sector, it’s that waste – or, more specifically, our wastewater – has untapped value. While the world worked from home to control the spread, we learned that tracking indicators in local wastewater streams could help us detect infection and predict – and even prevent – outbreaks. Governments turned to LuminUltra’s expertise in microbiology to help track and predict outbreaks by testing and analyzing wastewater from different neighbourhoods. This work also enabled LuminUltra to further develop its microbiological testing platform and invest in other segments of its business.

Beyond the pandemic, we can apply similar principles and continue to study wastewater to identify and track outbreaks or other challenges. It’s exciting to see the many ways in which innovation can play a role in protecting and improving global health and safety.

Confronting the challenges

The pandemic has made some of the sector’s biggest challenges that much more urgent, from the impacts of a changing climate to failing infrastructure to tight budgets to succession planning, and beyond – and each challenge intensifies the other. It’s clear that events like the BlueTech Forum are critical for our industry to share knowledge and contemplate next steps. More urgently, perhaps, we need to act on what we know, confront the challenges, and build resiliency throughout the industry.