Trinity leads new €2.9m EU project to take stress out of water networks

11 Sep 2017

Image: Teerawut Bunsom/Shutterstock

With help from Trinity College Dublin, a new €2.9m EU project will aim to make one of the continent’s biggest waste problems a thing of the past.

How water is piped to homes and businesses might be a sensitive topic in Ireland but, across the EU, water services remain one of the most energy-intensive pursuits, thereby contributing to greater amounts of CO2 emissions.

To help make them much more efficient, some engineering and business experts from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) are to be the technical leads on a new €2.9m EU project, in an effort to lighten the load on stressed water networks and reduce associated negative impacts on the environment.

The Redawn project aims to do this by drawing up plans for an institutional, social and technological environment for greater efficiencies in water networks, particularly irrigation, public water supply, waste and storm water, and process industry.

It will also look to adopt the latest in micro-hydropower, energy-recovery technology in water networks in western Europe, including in Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and the UK.

“European business competitiveness is impacted by the operational costs of water services, and so too are the general man and woman in the street, who pay for associated services,” said Redawn’s technical lead and TCD associate professor, Dr Aonghus McNabola.

“The Redawn project will make significant advances in improving energy efficiency in this sector, and it will have positive environmental and economic impacts. The research team is very excited to have received this funding and is looking forward to working on this project in the coming years.”

Helping McNabola will be Prof Paul Coughlan, who added: “Redawn is set up to enable the engineering, environmental science and business researchers to interact directly with practitioners from European industry.

“Together, these partners are committed to bringing their established expertise to the table and open to learning with, through and from each other.”

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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