Innovation
Win the chance to work on your water saving idea with support and guidance from our experts. You will also be able to use the facilities at one of our partner universities including Aston, Derby and Nottingham University.
The winner will receive £2,000 to support personal development or a year fully funded university course of your choice.
Improving how we take care of water
Water is one of life's essentials, and we have a responsibility to protect it.
Using less water and recycling the water that gets used is a huge part of that responsibility.
We're always looking at how we can develop and apply technology to achieve this. But we want to hear your ideas too.
We want to help you and your communities to save water and bring benefits to the people in your area. That's why we've launched Wavemakers.
Share your ideas with Wavemakers
We want to hear from you if you have ideas about:
- new water saving and recycling technology
- how to make existing solutions more affordable and available to more people
Your ideas could benefit your community.
By reducing water use and recycling used water we can:
- save water by protecting rivers and biodiversity
- save energy by pumping and treating less water
If you have a great idea on how to help improve how we take care of water, apply online to register your details.
Previous trials and their challenges
In the past, we've trialled rainwater harvesting and domestic wastewater recycling technologies.
The trials showed these options will reduce your bills and protect the environment by helping to reduce water use and waste.
There are two main challenges with these technologies:
- The cost of the equipment
- The disruption caused when retrofitting them to an existing house
We'd love to hear your ideas about how to make this technology, or technology like it, more cost effective and apply it in your local area.
Work with us to make your idea a reality
Winning ideas will get support, guidance and access to facilities with one of partners including Aston, Derby and Nottingham University.
Our innovation experts and mentors will give you help and guidance along the way.
You'll get online training that you can access at your own pace.
Finalists can use our new Severn Trent academy for face-to-face learning and mentoring.
The winner will get the choice of taking a:
- fully funded 1-year university course based at one of our university sponsors
- cash sum of £2000 to support you in your personal development
Eligibility for Wavemakers
To enter Wavemakers, you must:
- be aged 16 or over
- live in the Severn Trent region
- get water or waste services from Severn Trent
- not work for Severn Trent
Applications are closed
Applications for this round are now closed.
Congratulations to Kia Sandhu for her winning idea 'Bath 2 Bog'.
Keep an eye on this page for when the next round of Wavemakers applications are open.
You can view our Terms and Conditons for entry online.
Alternatively you can download our Terms and Conditions of Entry.
How to pitch your idea
If you are interested in taking part in our next round of Wavemakers, you will need to pitch your idea, you will need to pitch your idea.
This means clearly talking about what your idea is, the benefits it will bring to our customers, communities and environment, and how you want to get there.
It may be the very first time you’ve had to do anything like this so we have created a document with useful guidance to help you pitch your idea.
Wavemakers and Severn Trent
In our Wavemaker and Severn Trent document we go through:
- What Severn Trent does, their strategy, purpose and values
- How Severn Trent are regulated
- What the Wavemaker programme is, the challenge and why wavemakers
- How you can apply
Contact us
If you have any questions, please contact wavemakers@severntrent.co.uk.
In partnership with
