Greener Waterway Infrastructure Network (Green WIN) November 2018 to June 2022.

Green WIN’s “Greener Waterways Network”

A network of organisations to champion and promote greener technologies / processes / systems

Green WIN partners are tasked with setting up a Greener Waterways Network to promote and sustain the project’s findings long in to the future, teaming up with other inland waterway management organisations (“WMO’s”) and environmental groups to champion this initiative and encourage more WMO’s across Europe to use them to help ‘make their waterways greener’.

NIWE members are supporting Green WIN;

  • To ‘host’ the Greener Waterways Network – using the NIWE website as the focal point and a space where we place items of interest and for discussion by interested parties.
  • To source members of the Greener Waterways Network (including) from existing NIWE members
  • To get ongoing input into / provide expertise for the Greener Waterways Network
  • To source members of the Advisory Board from existing NIWE members

Watch our promotional video

NIWE also supports Green WIN;

  • To secure SME involvement in the project through an Advisory Board. The aim is for the solutions progressed in Green WIN to be developed further, or adapted, by SME’s and pump manufacturers. Individuals or representatives from their trade organisations are being invited to support these activities, participating on the Advisory Board for example offering technical advice at the installations of pumps / systems at the trials and in the initial testing at the University of Liège’s laboratories.
  • By adding their commercial insights which will give us a better understanding of the industry’s needs and help ensure partners focus on the things that should increase the chances of our greener technologies, systems and processes getting to market.

Other support NIWE members can offer is

  • To help persuade others to adopt Green WIN’s solutions as good practice and to achieve wider efficiencies and carbon reductions. Partners will be working hard to ensure the tested solutions are applied across more NWE waterways and want to encourage WMO’s outside the partnership to install equipment or adopt the improved systems and processes demonstrated. The investment, procurement and business plan we set out in a Green Practices Toolkit is intended to assist their pump replacement planning when existing equipment approaches ‘end of life’.
  • To review this document as part of the development. This adds important peer reviews and widens the transnationality beyond North West Europe – certainly in the regions NIWE members are from.

A bit more detail

We are looking to tackle the excess energy use and high carbon emissions Waterway Management Organisations (WMO’s) cause when pumping water around the region’s rivers and canals. The partnership is made up of WMO’s, Universities, Public Service Organisations and Inland Waterways experts from across NWE and is committed to working together to find solutions to this problem.

 

Partners will carry out laboratory trials to check how well current pumping technologies, systems and processes are performing and to see if we can adapt these to optimise performance, use less energy and produce fewer emissions. We trial different configurations of equipment to see if they work more efficiently and if there are optimal ways to deploy these re-configurations in different hydrological and operational scenarios. We also examine how, or if, we can incorporate renewable energy solutions into existing pumping technologies.

This research stage is followed by live testing of the strongest solutions developed, at 11 pilot sites across the UK, Ireland and France to check how they work in real operational conditions.

Industry (SME) Involvement

Our aim is for the solutions progressed in Green WIN to be developed further, or adapted, by SME’s and pump manufacturers. Individuals or representatives from their trade organisations are being invited to support these activities, participating on an Advisory Board, giving technical advice at the installations of pumps / systems at the trials and in the initial testing at the University of Liège’s laboratories. Their commercial insights will give us a better understanding of the industry’s needs and help ensure we focus on the things that should increase the chances of our greener technologies, systems and processes getting to market.

Long-Term Effects

Persuading others to adopt Green WIN’s solutions as good practice is vital if we are to achieve wider efficiencies and carbon reductions. We will be working hard to ensure our tested solutions are applied across more NWE waterways and want to encourage WMO’s outside the partnership to install equipment or adopt the improved systems and processes demonstrated. The investment, procurement and business plan we set out in a Green Practices Toolkit is intended to assist their pump replacement planning when existing equipment approaches ‘end of life’.

We will set up a Greener Waterways Network to promote and sustain the findings from Green WIN long in to the future, teaming up with other inland waterway organisations and environmental groups to champion this initiative and encourage more WMO’s across Europe to use them to help ‘make their waterways greener’.

Documents for Download