Stream – Icebreaker One

Unlocking water data for the benefit of customers, society, and the environment

Overview

The Stream programme aims to stimulate innovation and collaboration through open and shared data, with a vision to unlock water data for the benefit of customers, society, and the environment. In April 2024, Stream launched the Day 1 platform (https://www.streamwaterdata.co.uk/) with datasets published by the water companies available to access.

Stream consists of a consortium of 16 water and professional services companies, with Northumbrian Water as the lead organisation. It will put in place technology and processes to remove the barriers to opening up and sharing water company data.

IB1 involvement in Stream

As governance advisory partner, IB1 launched a Steering Group in the Blueprint Phase to shape the governance structure of Stream and worked to establish a lasting set of robust governance measures and engagement opportunities ahead of the Implementation Phase.

In the Implementation Phase, IB1 has continued to co-build an appropriate common framework for long-term collaboration, standards development, operational and legal capabilities to enable sector-wide and cross-sector data sharing.

IB1 convenes Advisory Group meetings to aid the development of the Stream programme. Advisory Group 1 (Market and User Needs) explores, prioritises and works through use cases that should be supported by Stream. This includes identifying defined users, their needs, mapping the data value chain and the broader ecosystem surrounding each use case. Advisory Group 2 (Technical Requirements) is responsible for understanding the technical challenges and opportunities in accessing water data.

The Stream Steering & Advisory Group Terms of Reference can be found here (v05-08-2023).

Join the Stream Advisory Groups here

About Stream

Run by Ofwat and Challenge Works, and supported by Arup and Isle Utilities, the Water Breakthrough Challenge is a part of Ofwat’s £200 million Innovation Fund and aims to encourage initiatives that help to tackle the biggest challenges facing the water sector, such as achieving net zero, protecting natural ecosystems and reducing leakage, as well as delivering value to society.

The Stream Blueprint phase: This phase took a first look at the design & execution of an Open Data solution for the water sector. The Blueprint phase included a review of existing industry platforms, interviews with potential users to create the first iteration of the Stream platform pages produced by the partners would later become the basis for the overall design.

Stream Implementation Phase: Work began once funding came through in August of 2023. 13 of the UK’s major water companies came together to reach consensus on the first open data set to be published under Stream. The Stream beta platform launches meant multiple standardised open data sets became available to the public.

Stream is Led by Northumbrian Water, and partners include: Anglian Water Group, Severn Trent Water, Scottish Water, SES Water, United Utilities, South West Water, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, Wessex Water, Southern Water, Yorkshire Water, Sia Partners, Aiimi, Open Data Institute, Costain, Pinsent Masons, Cosan Croga.

Steering and Advisory Group Meeting minutes:

Steering Group