Worldwide the wastewater infrastructure has grown over the last 200 years to a chaotic network of pipes, leads, wells and other elements. Although the wastewater infrastructures are expanding daily, the techniques to explore water networks have not changed significantly during the past 50 years, resulting in significant inaccuracies, out-dated information, data losses and an extreme slow progress. Consequently issues like collapses, floods and unknown erosion states can occur in the absence of a well-organised (waste) water infrastructure management.
Inspecting and inventorying the sewer network is of importance because malfunctioning, due to bad maintenance, accidental damage or sabotage, can have huge impacts. Together with the constant population growth, climate change, maintenance and regulatory issues (EU directives), cities and settlements in general are in need of understanding in detail the nature, extension and status of their current wastewater infrastructure to prevent or control failures.
H2020 SME phase 1 project SEGU, or Sewer inventory system to safeguard waste water infrastructures, aimed to strengthen and elaborate Voxdale’s business plan & market access strategy for inspecting and inventorying the sewer network using the SEGU technology. The overall objective of the SEGU project is market introduction of a Waste Water Infrastructure Data Service within EU28 – and beyond – to address the above issues and targeting a proper management of waste water infrastructure. The final outcome will be digital 3D data obtained up to 4 times faster, 10 times more accurate and 75% less expensive compared to state of the art systems while guarding the safety of the sewer workers (nowadays, a worker has to descend in the sewer).
SEGU specific objectives were formulated as: (i) study of the market mechanisms in different target (EU) countries and evaluate which EU-28 countries would be the most appropriate for an accelerated market introduction, (ii) validation of the right sales model of the data to launch the SEGU service, (iii) analysing restrictions/legislations with respect to the (local) interpretation of the European directive, (iv) refining and optimization of the financial plan ensuring profitability.
Main conclusion of the SEGU project:
• As Voxdale is mainly a service agency for design and engineering projects, and based specifically on Task 1 (market mechanisms), Task 2 (business model), and Task 4 (Business plan), it was decided to spin out the project in daughter company SpacePal bvba to fully allow the deployment and development of the SEGU project.
• Bram Plancke, a young entrepreneurial CEO, was appointed to guide the development to the next phases.
• SpacePal is currently participating in the ESA BIC (Business Incubation) program, as space assets like Earth Navigation and Human spaceflight (ToF technology, stepper motors, etc.) are used to accelerate the technological developments.
• To sponsor further development and market deployment, and to match co-financing for future grants, venture capital (through the founders, a family office, and private placement) has been made available.
• An H2020 Phase 2 Innovation project for further prototyping, piloting and up-scaling the SEGU service is in full preparation.
