MOSL, the market operator of the non-household retail water market, have announced the winners of the first round of the Market Improvement Fund.
The fund, which opened in September, offered individuals or groups up to £150k from a £1m fund to fund projects that improve the non-household market.
MOSL received twelve bids in total, equalling £1.2 million in requested funding. The bids varied from smart technology installation and data cleansing to water efficiency initiatives. Bidders were looking to raise amounts from £20k to the maximum £150k.
All bids were reviewed for eligibility and scored by the independent Selection Committee and subsequently approved by the Panel. The Selection Committee have awarded over £700k in total to seven successful bids:
Pennon Water Services: This project aims to reduce potable water use from a sample of business customers by as much as 25 per cent through intelligent reuse of rainwater held in underground attenuation tanks.
OccuTrace Ltd: By visiting a cross-section of Long Unread Meters (LUMs) across England, this project aims to provide MOSL with accurate data on the root causes of LUMs to establish the level of accuracy currently in the market. This knowledge could help trading parties better understand why meters are not being read across the country and what they can do about it.
RWG: The project aims to increase readership of RWG-produced good practice guides, customer guidance and associated documents by establishing clear brand guidelines and improving the look and feel of documentation.
Precision Water: This pilot project will cleanse and match a selection of core supply points (SPIDs) to their relevant Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN)/Valuation Office Agency (VOA) reference, with an aim to demonstrate benefits such as an increase in the quality of customer address data, allowing for solutions to be addressed quicker, and a reduction of wholesaler-retailer friction following an increase in the accuracy and cleanliness of address data.
Anglian Water: This project aims to investigate how AMI meter read data is standardised in the central market operating system (CMOS), by creating an online pathfinder platform that can be used by wholesalers to directly share available AMI data in a standard format, amongst other capabilities. This could decrease barrier to entry costs for all trading parties.
Thames Water: The funding awarded for this project will help develop the RWG Water Efficiency sub-group roadmap to ensure it provides a compelling case for change to the regulatory framework. It will explore ways in which customers, retailers and wholesalers can be incentivised to make water efficiency changes which was a core government proposition for creating the retail water market.
Bristol Water: Wheatley and Bristol Water aim to enhance their PinPoint app to provide a market-wide tool to improve supply point and meter accuracy data, making a central hub accessible to all trading parties. This project includes a three-month pilot of Blicker AI technology, which will capture a meter read value and seral number from a photograph.
More information about the winning projects is available on the MOSL website.
