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An On the wire story
Ofwat has launched the second round of its Water Efficiency Lab, inviting innovators to compete for funding to cut customer-side leakage in homes and businesses across England and Wales.
The regulator said the challenge, known as WEL2, will back tools and systems that can prevent, predict, locate or repair leaks within property boundaries rather than in the mains network, with as much as £5 million available in total and up to £1.5 million for individual winners.
The timing underlines the scale of the problem. Ofwat says leaks in homes and workplaces are thought to waste between 1 billion and 1.5 billion litres a day, a loss that adds up to as much as 547 billion litres a year and costs customers and businesses between £1 billion and £1.6 billion.
The regulator also pointed to insurance data showing that escape-of-water claims cost UK insurers £1.25 billion in 2024, with household leaks accounting for almost three quarters of that figure.
The new competition is seeking practical solutions across four areas: preventing leaks through better materials or retrofit components, predicting likely failures with data or modelling, pinpointing the exact location of a leak, and making repairs cheaper, simpler and less disruptive.
According to Ofwat, the first Water Efficiency Lab round produced seven winning projects, announced in June 2026, including a Royal Horticultural Society programme on garden watering, a “50 Litre Home” pilot, and a retail partnership looking at water use across supermarkets, pubs and shops.
One of those earlier winners, the WIN Initiative led by Quensus, received £495,000 to fit more than 1,000 sensors across 30 commercial buildings, in an effort to tackle the 10 to 30 per cent of water that can be lost in commercial settings through leaks and continuous flow.
The project is also testing whether linking water efficiency to insurance premiums could provide a commercial incentive, with Aviva examining whether a new Water Management Plan standard might deliver benefits for building owners.
Ofwat said WEL2 opened at 1pm on 3 August 2026 and will close on 20 October 2026, with delivery handled by Challenge Works, part of Nesta, alongside Arup and Isle, using money from the Water Efficiency Fund.
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• This On the wire article was created using Noahwire AI and reviewed by CIBSE Journal’s editorial team
