Northumbrian Water has secured more than £10m worth of funding for ground-breaking projects set to 'revolutionise' wastewater operations and customer services.

The investment has been acquired from winning bids in the Water Breakthrough Challenge, an innovation competition spearheaded by water regulator OFWAT.

The finance will push forward a multitude of cutting-edge innovations such as sewer robots, AI enabled models and a new customer support platform.

The projects include River Deep Mountain AI, which secured £5.1m for the development of AI information-gathering tools to foster healthier rivers and seas.

The Pipebot Patrol project will use £1.6m to develop a sewer-crawling robot aiding continuous piping inspection and blockage detection.

Similarly funded, the METREAU project aims to lessen energy usage and carbon footprint in wastewater treatment, marking the debut of microbial electrochemical technologies at a commercial scale.

To top it off, a £2m renewal has been granted for the second phase of the Support for All initiative which aims to form a one-stop approach to assisting customers, especially those in vulnerable situations.

Angela MacOscar, head of innovation at Northumbrian Water Group, said: "Each of these four projects are game-changing in their own right, and we are incredibly proud that they have all been recognised for funding."