Newcastle University and industry partners have been given the backing to launch a new project that will see customer bills and carbon emissions reduced by December 2025.

The project, called ‘Fair Water’, has been chosen as one of the winners in Ofwat’s £36million Water Innovation Challenge and has been awarded £3.8m of funding to get started.

Northumbrian Water leads the project and will be working alongside partners at Newcastle University, National Energy Action, Procter & Gamble and Northern Gas Networks to reduce water use and energy emissions for customers significantly within the next four years helping to bring payments down for billpayers.

The water company say that addressing water use and energy emissions with customers can be difficult, as many current solutions come at a cost and involve disruption to customers both in their homes and in their daily habits.

However, through project ‘Fair Water’ they will develop affordable solutions that work for a wide range of customers living in a variety of existing housing types, with minimal disruption to homes or habits.

This will be done by evaluating consumer products already being used, co-creating and developing new solutions, and improving behavioural change and technology-based solutions to enable customers to reduce water and energy use and carbon emissions.