Since the project began back in September 2016, the more the discussion has developed around the role of water efficiency on delivering energy recovery. John attended the IWA Efficient 2017 conference in Bath in the UK last week, with this topic at the centre of his talk "Embodied energy in systems that is 'surplus to requirements': the role of energy recovery as part of the water-energy nexus story".
The three days were packed with great speakers in keynote and parallel sessions (of which the challenge was selecting what you had to miss) on topics ranging from cvase studies of water efficiency measures, water recycling and reuse, public engagement studies and the assessment of non-revenue water, as well as addressing the impacts of population growth and climate change.
The IWA event was organised by the Waterwise, the Watef Network and WIRC (Water Innovation Research Centre) at the University of Bath and in short was one of the best eventattended in quite some time. The case studies presented by speakers from all around the world were not just fascinating from a research perspective, but this was innovation in action.
The Dwr Uisce work has a role to play in energy efficiency for water supply and treatment, but it reinforces the importance of the water-energy nexus and the delivery of water efficiency as it will need to be accounted for as we consider the long term future of our work through the demonstration sites (more information on these coming soon)