Recognising Technological Innovation

It has been confirmed that Severn Trent Services, have been shortlisted and nominated for two prestigious awards at the forthcoming Aquatech Innovation Awards, which will be held on 29th September during the Aquatech Amsterdam 2008 exhibition.

Severn Trent Services is the only company to receive two nominations in this year’s awards, with the jury of experts from the water industry nominating the innovative SmartMeter SM150VR+ solution for the category titled Process Control Technology and Process Automation, and the revolutionary MicroDynamics microwave ultraviolet (UV) disinfection system for the Water Treatment category.



On hearing the news, Alex Lloyd, Managing Director for Severn Trent Services Ltd said: “Investing in product and service innovation is fundamental to our business globally, and ensures that we are continually developing new technologies and products that serve to help our customers. We are therefore delighted that our products have been recognised by the Aquatech Innovation Awards. It is a tremendous achievement and acknowledges the hard work and commitment that everyone has made in designing and developing these two very innovative product ranges.”

Severn Trent Services has become synonymous within the intelligent water meter industry since it first developed the revolutionary no moving parts` SmartMeter technology in the 1990s. The nominated SmartMeter SM150VR+ is the company`s latest development and is a new low cost intelligent water meter. A major benefit of the SM150VR+, as recognised by the Aquatech Innovation Awards` judges, is the ability to upgrade to an encoded output, which enables the meter to be read using an AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) device. This ensures that the billing data collected is correct as no manual entry is required, and enables meters to be read without requiring access to the property. In addition, the meter can be used to provide instant meter reads and “doorstep billing” through an inductive coil in the meter and a hand-held printer device. The SmartMeter SM150VR+ is the first water meter to offer such a doorstep billing system to accelerate the meter reading and billing process.

The second nomination for the MicroDynamics microwave ultraviolet (UV) disinfection system is reflective of the considerable global interest Severn Trent Services has received for the technology since it was launched earlier this year. Innovatively the system uses new electrodeless microwave UV technology to offer a three year lamp life guarantee. It has also been designed so that there is no detrimental effect to the lamp if it is switched on and off - a feature not possible with systems containing electrodes.


As an Aquatech Innovation Award nominee, Severn Trent Services have also been invited to present its new technological innovations as part of the Aquastage programme. In addition, the benefits of the MicroDynamics system will be demonstrated at the International Water Association (IWA) “Millennium Development Goals on Sanitation” conference. The IWA is running a series of conferences in parallel with Aquatech at the RAI Centre.