Over the past year, the Trial Reservoir Initiative (TRI) has worked with partners across the water innovation ecosystem to highlight the role of trials as a blueprint for derisking innovation.

Leveraging Trials as Springboard for Innovation

Over the past year, the Trial Reservoir Initiative (TRI) has worked with partners across the water innovation ecosystem to highlight the role of trials as a blueprint for derisking innovation. Here are updates from recent discussions.

Webinar with The Water Council

In particular, TRI recently partnered with The Water Council to cohost an invitation-only webinar for members and alumni of their Business, Research & Entrepreneurship in Water (BREW) 2.0 accelerator program. The Water Council (TWC) is a hub dedicated to solving critical water challenges by driving innovation in freshwater technology and advancing water stewardship. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, TWC has global reach, promoting technologies to address sustainability challenges around the world.

During the webinar, Isle led a discussion around trial and opportunities with two TRI alumni: EnBiorganic y Orège. EnBiorganic shared insights from their trial with Meadlow Lake Mechanical Pulp, where they successfully reduced Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), color, and odor from the facility’s high-organic wastewater, thus saving operators time and money. Orège highlighted their successful trial with Yorkshire Water, where their Solid-Liquid-Gas-Flosep (SLG-F) plug-and-play package plant dramatically reduced the utility’s volume of sewage sludge.

Third Coast Water Seminars with Current Water

Dr. Reshmina William, lead for the U.S. Utilities Trial Reservoir, also presented as part of Great Lakes ReNEW’s Third Coast Water Seminar series. The series highlights the research, technologies, and policies advancing a circular water economy in the Great Lakes region, the broader U.S., and globally. Dr. William shared her lessons learned around common trial bottlenecks, and how the trial reservoir model has helped to address some of these challenges for pilots around the world.

Key Takeaways

1. Proof-of-concept trials are a necessary and important part of the innovation process. Technology demonstrations improve credibility by providing concrete evidence that a technology will work as intended. They also improve end-user engagement and buy-in, allowing for feedback and design iteration to meet evolving stakeholder needs.
2. Proactive management before, during, and after the trial design process is key to addressing systemic bottlenecks. Effective trial management can include acknowledgement and addressing of risks as part of the contractual trial documentation. It can also include stage-gating, risk management, and other project management approaches that can be built into the trial design.
3. Effective trials act as a “springboard” for innovators seeking to access new markets. When it comes to regional or sectoral growth for novel technologies, no end-user wants to be the “guinea pig.” By enabling proof-of-concepts in new environments, TRI allows companies to build a track of success. These reference sites give them a foot in the door to new markets and allow them to establish trust early with potential customers.
4. The Trial Reservoirs Initiative acts as a pathway to de-risk technology adoption and facilitate successful implementations. Isle is a neutral third party, acting as a bridge between the end-user and the vendor, while also providing technical and trial management expertise and guidance. A successful TRI trial significantly reduces the lag time between successful trials and expanded implementation by the end user.

Join us!

Interested in learning more about the Trial Reservoir Initiative? Reach out directly to Jo Burgess ([email protected]), Head of Isle’s Tech Ascend Foundation, or to Reshmina William ([email protected]), Lead for the US Utilities Trial Reservoir.