2023 Winners

A US-based desalination technology expert aiming to solve the toughest challenges in the industrial water sector through a wide range of environmentally friendly solutions, powered by an ever-growing suite of innovative technologies.

Gradiant took confident strides in 2022 towards its goal of deploying its technologies on a service basis, making valuable use of the $105 million the company received in a 2021 funding round. Aided by new manufacturing capabilities acquired with Dubai-based OEM and service provider Advanced Watertek, Gradiant has now come into its own as a capable global end-to-end solutions provider.The stunning acquisition of Canada-based machine learning specialist Synauta unlocked powerful new digital synergies between Synauta’s machine learning optimisations and Gradiant’s existing reverse technology as part of Gradiant’s end-to-end RO Infinity solution, as well as providing savings at Gradiant’s existing plants under its build-own-operate (BOO) business model.

A Saudi desalination and power generation project developer, investor, owner and operator. The company has more than 15 years’ expertise developing some of the world’s largest water projects and has a project portfolio worth more than $72 billion, including 6.4 million m3/d of successfully developed seawater desalination projects.

In a crushing demonstration of its ever-growing capability as a project developer, 2022 saw ACWA Power successfully deliver a record 2.4 million m3/d of new desalination capacity, overcoming the challenges of a global pandemic to commission four new desalination mega-projects without delays. Startup at the Taweelah (UAE), Umm Al Quwain (UAE), Rabigh 3 (Saudi) and Ad Dur 2 (Bahrain) independent water projects represents a colossal contribution to water supply in the water-starved GCC region.The past year saw ACWA Power display its continued skill in familiar territory while branching out beyond the GCC for the first time. A contract win for a mega-project at Shoaiba (Saudi Arabia) and the low bid for another at Rabigh (Saudi Arabia) reflect the company’s dominance in the notoriously competitive GCC project markets, while a desalination deal with the government of Senegal places ACWA Power at the forefront of affordable desalinated water in emerging markets.

Formed after the merger of Dow and DuPont in 2017, DuPont Water Solutions offers a portfolio of separation solutions to the water industry. The company also owns a number of subsidiary brands, including OxyMem and Memcor.

DuPont’s array of unique proprietary solutions saw a huge upsurge of interest in 2022, with technology being snapped up by some of the world’s most advanced facilities. In December 2022, its Closed Circuit Reverse Osmosis offering through Desalitech was taken on to further improve the world’s most water-efficient brewery, with the sale of a system to Carlsberg Group for its site in Fredericia, Denmark.After merging with OxyMem in 2019, the company has grown to become one of the world’s leading membrane-aerated bioreactor providers. The MABR technology requires 75% less energy than traditional systems and a ‘drop -in’ integration avoids additional down-time. Successes for the technology included Gansu province in China, where the company provided a low-carbon and high-performing technology for biological treatment to improve the quality of the Yellow River.

A Euronext-listed specialist in hollow fibre direct nanofiltration membranes from the Netherlands, working with both industrial and municipal clients.

NX Filtration last year cemented a truly global reach thanks to a wealth of regional partners that facilitate the distribution of its technology. In 2022 the company secured projects through Hydroflux (Australia), Greentech (China), DelcoWater and BI Pure Water (Canada).The company saw a significant size-up in its installed capacity in 2022 by investing heavily in its pilot fleet during the year, nearly doubling the number of projects installed in 2021. It is now working its way towards its medium-term goal of 200 systems.

A US start-up company harnessing the properties of zwitterions – molecules with an equal number of positively- and negatively-charged groups – to create robust polymeric membranes for industrial applications. Its flagship spiral-wound superfiltration (SF) membrane is hydrophilic and immune to fouling, enabling it to treat the most challenging industrial wastewater streams.

Capitalising on a growing appetite for recovering value from waste, ZwitterCo is unlocking revenue from the wastewater streams of its high-profile industrial clients. Its addressable markets span from protein recovery from pet food processing to fat separation from the dairy industry, enabling synergies across treatment processes while also boosting water reuse rates. A partnership with Digested Organics, announced last October, opened up new growth markets in treating digestate to support the recovery of 50% of the stream for water reuse and the other half as a high-value fertiliser.

A Canadian start-up offering a cloud-based machine learning software platform which leverages artificial intelligence to optimise the operations of wastewater treatment and desalination plants. Offered under a software-as-a-service model, its proprietary algorithms are used to create digital twins of facilities.

Pani’s core value proposition lies in uncovering optimisations in existing treatment processes, claiming a raft of efficiencies including reducing operating costs and energy consumption by up to 15% and 20%, respectively. With a particular focus on enhancing the performance of reverse osmosis membranes, its digital twin can be used to hone process improvements to cleaning cycles and chemical consumption.

The MWSS Regulatory Office regulates concessionaires Manila Water and Maynilad, which provide water and wastewater services to Metro Manila and adjacent provinces. It monitors and enforces rates and service standards, arranges independent audits for performance and monitors the infrastructure assets to ensure the services remain safe, sustainable and affordable.

In 2022, MWSS RO introduced a new performance-based tariff system for its two concessionaires after a rate rebasing exercise. The new structure links the ability to increase tariffs directly with increases in sewerage coverage, providing a massive incentive to expand piped wastewater coverage in the Philippines’ most dense urban area. This way, the regulator ensures the concessionaires continue to pursue the coverage targets laid out in their agreements and fast-track the roll-out of wastewater projects.

Malaysia’s national sewerage company, with a mandate to develop and maintain the country’s wastewater system. The company replaced local authorities as a provider of sewerage services when it was awarded a nationwide concession by the federal government in 1994. Owned by the Ministry of Finance, IWK operates over 7,000 sewage treatment plants and 20,000 km of sewer lines, serving over 30 million people.

IWK pursued its goal of near perfect performance last year, achieving over 97% effluent compliance rate over its 7,000 treatment plants and a rate collection rate over 92%, a significant improvement over past figures. It also completed expansions of its groundbreaking water reclamation plant which as of December 2022 was producing 4,500m3/d of reclaimed water for industry.

The world’s largest operational membrane-driven desalination plant, with an unprecedented capacity of 909,000m3/d, located in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and capable of supplying potable water to more than 350,000 households. The seawater reverse osmosis (RO) plant features a 50MW on-site solar PV power generation facility and was delivered as an independent water project (IWP) under the build-own-operate model.

The plant is the first mass-scale greenfield seawater RO plant to be built in Abu Dhabi and represents a landmark step towards decarbonising the emirate’s historically thermally-driven desalination portfolio. The new IWP, which uses a solar PV plant to supply more than 30% of its energy, will reduce Abu Dhabi’s carbon footprint by 2.5 million tons CO2e per year, marking the dawn of a new era of environmentally sustainable desalination in the emirate.

A 450,000m3/d seawater reverse osmosis plant located on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, providing potable water to 2 million people in the areas of Asir and Jizan and delivered on a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis. The plant is one of the first desalination mega-projects to address its carbon footprint directly with a captive solar PV power facility.

With the global pandemic causing major disruption to project timelines all around the world, Shuqaiq 3 was delivered with only a nominal delay of 6.5%. Despite the shutdown of factories for core equipment, unreliable component shipping, and a complete ban on international flights in Saudi Arabia at times, the project team was able to adapt to and overcome these unexpected challenges and deliver the project within the original financial budget.

The largest nanofiltration (NF) drinking water plant in the world, deploying microfiltration (MF) as well as nanofiltration in a radical overhaul of an existing treatment plant. The project completed in 2022 comprised 300,000m3/d of capacity, with a second stage expected to start construction this year. The total cost of the two stages will reach RMB938 million ($136 million).

The project was the first to couple MF and NF in the Chinese municipal market, ensuring system security and reliability in an environment of uncertain raw water quality. The compact design eliminated intermediate water takes, supply pumps and filters, enhancing energy savings and resulting in a compact physical footprint that reduced land requirements by 60% and capital cost by 15%.

An IDR107 billion ($7 million), 3,000m3/d upgrade to the conventional Dumai City Water Treatment Plant on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, using nanofiltration to treat water for potable purposes from the local Masjid River.

The project stands as a model for a host of countries where coloured water is an issue. By improving water sources for the population and strengthening the operational performance of water service providers while maintaining a sustainable environment, the plant achieved environmental benefits that helped it secure the financial support of the World Bank through its National Urban Water Supply Program.

A state-of-the-art co-digestion and biogas upgrading facility delivered at the 12MGD (45,420m3/d) Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority (VVWRA) facility in Victorville, California. The facility converts 235,000 tons a year of waste and sludge into 320,000Mmbtu of biomethane, and is North America’s largest privately financed co-digestion-to-pipeline project, producing biomethane from wastewater.

The project deftly integrates solutions in the water and energy spheres, demonstrating how efficient and technically advanced retrofits of old digesters at wastewater plants can enable more revenue generation and reduce disposal costs, making the utility a net energy exporter at the same time as reducing its carbon footprint.

A SAR320 million ($85 million) privately owned independent sewage treatment plant (ISTP) serving the city of Taif in Saudi Arabia. The project is the first major wastewater treatment plant in the Kingdom awarded on a PPP basis to reach commercial operation, and treats an initial 100,000m3/d of wastewater. It deploys a continuous flow sequencing batch reactor (SBR) stage followed by tertiary filtration and disinfection, as well as sludge treatment with anaerobic digestion, solar drying and a biogas cogeneration system.

With tertiary treatment capabilities and sludge handling expertise, the plant is a first mover in a new generation of sewage treatment in the Kingdom. Treated water irrigates more than 10,000 trees around the plant, while solar-driven sludge handling contributes biogas accounting for more than 30% of the facility’s energy footprint, putting the plant at the centre of the Kingdom’s green goals.

Food and drink conglomerate PepsiCo’s first truly circular water treatment facility, delivered at its snack manufacturing site in Vallejo, Mexico. The water is treated by a membrane bioreactor coupled with reverse osmosis which has the benefit of producing World Health Organisation potable water standards with a reuse capacity of 1,971m3/d.

In 2022, the circular water system allowed the Vallejo plant to go an unprecedented 150 days without the use of freshwater between April and mid-October. This saved a volume equivalent to the annual water consumption of 4,000 local families. The system’s use of harvested rainwater and condensation, on top of in-house technologies which improve water efficiency contributed to this.The plant has a near-perfect on-site reuse efficiency of 99%, acting as a blueprint to reduce freshwater consumption and expand circularity projects to over 1,000 PepsiCo sites globally. Overall, this makes a substantial contribution to PepsiCo’s goal to become net water positive by 2030.

A 624m3/d wastewater treatment plant handling discharge from the Jurong facility owned by pharmaceuticals and biochemistry giant GSK, and sending treated effluent to Singapore’s national wastewater recycling system. The project, delivered as part of the industrial company’s 2030 environmental masterplan, features a membrane bioreactor and advanced oxidation process to tackle volatile organic compounds.

Efficiency is a core component of the new wastewater treatment facility. It utilises repurposed equalisation tanks with bioreactors that have an average efficiency of up to 99% before passing effluent through ultrafiltration and advanced oxidation stages with an average efficiency of 85%.The site and its efficient technology reduce the quantity of wastewater that must be incinerated due to the presence of volatile organic compounds from 732m3 to just 125m3. The reduction in incineration has slashed the CO2 impact by 83% while boosting recovered water by 83% – this has translated to solid cost-savings.

Maynilad, which serves around 9.5 million people in the western half of Metro Manila, embarked on a project that would convert used water from households into drinkable supply called NEW WATER. This is to reduce its dependence on Angat Dam, which is the primary water source of some 15 million Metro Manila residents.

The move towards potable water reuse is part of the company’s bid to boost available supplies given the growing demand for water, and the strain on existing raw water sources due to climate change effects. Water reuse will expand Maynilad’s options, especially when existing sources are compromised by drought or typhoons, thus enhancing water security, reliability and sustainability.

An SGD70 million ($52 million) revamp of wastewater treatment at Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Park. Two dedicated animal wastewater treatment plants (DAWTPs), with capacities of 1,500m3/d and 2,300 m3/d, are taking bringing wildlife into the water cycle by treating and recycling animal waste into high-quality water for non-potable reuse.

An SGD70 million ($52 million) revamp of wastewater treatment at Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Park. Two dedicated animal wastewater treatment plants (DAWTPs), with capacities of 1,500m3/d and 2,300 m3/d, are taking bringing wildlife into the water cycle by treating and recycling animal waste into high-quality water for non-potable reuse. The park’s mission to use animal waste to produce clean water for non-potable reuse embodies the ‘Make Every Drop Count’ campaign championed by the Singaporean government. It contributes to the city-state's long-term initiatives to make the most of every drop of water, making the city’s wildlife parks part of one of the world’s most comprehensive and exciting water sustainability movements.

A transformative collaboration between Suez, Echologics and PUB came to the fore in 2022, with a combination of acoustic sensing and risk-based analytics cutting leakage rates to record lows. By pairing Echologics’ condition assessment technology with Suez’s analytics platform, Singapore’s pioneering water operator has been able to prioritise pipeline renewals like never before, delivering sizable capex savings while guaranteeing resiliency in the face of climate change.

Situated in one of the most water-sensitive regions of the world, a leaky network is not an option for Singapore’s award-winning operator. Never willing to back away from the challenge, the utility’s seminal work has enabled it to replace 100km of high-risk cast iron mains since 2020, bringing the city one step closer to a resilient water future.

Wellington Water worked closely with ABB to take the resiliency of its drinking water infrastructure to the next level, implementing state-of-the-art flow meters and variable frequency drives to deliver crucial efficiency gains. The dual solution instantly took Wellington’s network monitoring – and management – up a notch, while simultaneously sparking a wave energy savings across pumping stations.

With pumping occupying the lion’s share of a utility’s energy consumption, ABB’s intelligent drives were well placed to deliver crucial efficiency gains, squeezing important savings from one of the water cycle’s most intensive energy users.As scarcity concerns continue to pile pressure on drinking water operators, intelligent and accurate network monitoring has quickly become a necessity. Implementing ABB’s high-accuracy flow meters now means Wellington Water can rise to the challenge, closely tracking network flows to ensure every drop is accounted for.

One of the world’s largest listed organic waste to biomethane solutions companies. Beginning as a technology provider, Anaergia has now expanded into offering complete lifecycle solutions including project financing and operations. It has delivered over 1,500 resource recovery facilities on four continents over the last 25 years.

Anaergia continued its portfolio growth in 2022 by commissioning multiple plants. At all of them, Anaergia estimated the amount of CO2 reduction accounted by their installations, offset by the production of renewable fuel. The SoCal Biomethane at VVWRA in California will prevent 38,000 tonnes per year of CO2e being released into the atmosphere and another plant in Camden, New Jersey will prevent another 9,000 tonnes per year. Another plant in California, expected to be fully commissioned in 2023, will avert a further 14,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

A global operator of water and waste management systems. Since last year’s purchase of large parts of the company’s business by Veolia, the ‘new’ Suez has reformed to cement its place the second biggest private water operator in France and is active in a vast array of markets around the world.

To accelerate emissions reduction, Suez is ramping up renewable energy generation to achieve energy self-sufficiency. The company aims to achieve full energy self-sufficiency in Europe by 2030, and 70% in the rest of the world by leveraging biogas production and solar farms on its sites through power-purchasing agreements.Its scale gives Suez unique opportunities for synergies and internal offsetting to reduce carbon emissions across the business. Unlocking the biogas generation potential in solid waste and wastewater will go a long way in reducing emissions, and open spaces such as landfills are also perfect for installing solar panels. All this renewable energy can help power the energy-intensive water operations, as well as provide renewable energy for communities.

A groundbreaking venture launched from UCLA came to the fore in 2022, with Active Membranes pioneering electrically conductive desalination technology that tackles scaling and fouling challenges.

By licensing research from UCLA professor David Jassby and developing proprietary coatings, co-founders including professors Eric Hoek and Arian Edalat transformed passive membrane separation into active control. Founded within UCLA's Magnify Incubator at the California NanoSystems Institute, this innovative water technology startup has been able to reduce desalination costs and environmental footprint like never before, delivering substantial operational savings while addressing global freshwater scarcity in the face of climate change.

A transformative funding round for Seattle-based Membrion came to the fore in 2022, with $7 million in Series B investment led by PureTerra Ventures accelerating ceramic desalination technology to new heights BlueTech Research.

By securing finalist status in SEMI's Startups for Semiconductor Sustainability competition and presenting at Singapore International Water Week, this innovative membrane manufacturer has been able to expand into critical industrial sectors like never before Active MembranesPitchBook. Additionally receiving a $1.1 million DOE grant for advanced manufacturing optimization, Membrion delivered enhanced production capabilities while enabling up to 98% water recovery in harsh conditions, guaranteeing sustainability across microelectronics, mining, and industrial wastewater treatment.

A transformative community-led planning initiative came to the fore in 2022, with Barwon Water finalising its Urban Water Strategy: Water for our Future after two years of co-design with over 5,000 community participants BlueTech ResearchCoorsTek.

By investing over $53 million in water and sewerage infrastructure upgrades while implementing renewable energy partnerships and organic waste networks, Victoria's innovative regional utility has been able to enhance water security and sustainability like never before LinkedIn, delivering customer affordability through $40 million in operational savings LinkedIn while guaranteeing resilience through 25 strategic actions addressing climate change and population growth over the next 50 years CoorsTek.

A transformative circular sanitation project came to the fore in 2022, with RecoLab in Helsingborg's Oceanhamnen district pioneering source-separated treatment of blackwater, greywater and food waste through separate pipelines MDPITracxn.

By pairing DeSah's innovative sanitation design with NX Filtration's nanofiltration technology, Sweden's intermunicipal utility NSVA has been able to revolutionise resource recovery like never before MDPI, delivering 25% water consumption reductions and 80% greywater recycling to drinking water quality while guaranteeing sustainability through nutrient extraction for fertiliser pellets, biogas production for district heating, and micropollutant removal MDPILinkedIn. The world's largest source-separated sanitation plant sets new standards for circular waste management MDPI.