The Water Council today named two water technology projects as winners of its 2016 Pilot Deployment Program as part of a partnership with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and the Fund for Lake Michigan.
The winners include Veolia Water Milwaukee and OptiRTC, Inc. and Solar Water Works.
Rain:Net powered by Opti is designed to actively control and monitor stormwater discharge based on sensor and satellite data combined with forecast information.
Utilizing a solar-powered, catalytic oxidation process for stormwater disinfection, Solar Water Works will measure reaction rate constants for disinfection of two types of bacteria. The goal is to produce data for economic analysis of larger-scale stormwater maintenance implementations.
The two projects will split $182,385. The winners will also be providing a cash or in-kind match. They will receive access to demonstration sites throughout Milwaukee, support from The Water Council’s technology network, an opportunity to validate their technology through demonstration and possibility of small-scale manufacturing of final products.
“Technology innovation is a challenging process in such a legacy industry as water and the commercialization process can be long and difficult,” said Dean Amhaus, Water Council president and chief executive officer. “The Pilot Program aims to bring efficiency and much needed funding, advisory support and designated demonstration sites to our companies, in order to launch new technologies to market.”
The partnership’s goal is to address integrated water solutions through innovation, application and demonstration, while also maintaining a cost-efficient, scale-able and deploy-able model. Applicants were asked to address intelligent stormwater green infrastructure, stormwater quality or stormwater quantity. A panel of judges from A.O. Smith Corp., We Energies, the City of Milwaukee, Fund for Lake Michigan and MMSD conducted a competitive analysis of each proposal and selected the winners after two rounds of voting.
