Italy scouts for Israeli water tech as drought concerns mount & More News Here

A big delegation of Italian water utility corporations lately wrapped up a go to to Israel to scout for collaborations and partnerships on water applied sciences, assembly with startups representatives, authorities authorities, and enterprise entities as Italy battles the nation’s worst drought in some 70 years.

The delegation of twenty-two Italian water utility corporations and three engineering companies was hosted earlier this month by the Israel Export Institute, a authorities company tasked with facilitating commerce alternatives, partnerships, and strategic alliances underneath the purview of the Economy and Industry Ministry.

The events met in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the Israel Water Innovation Technology Summit, and toured water desalination, purification, and conservation vegetation by Mekorot, Israel’s nationwide water firm which says it provides about 1.7 billion cubic meters of water (or about 450 billion gallons) per yr.

Mekorot additionally works with Israeli water tech startups to pilot progressive options.

Ami Levin, director of the Europe Department on the Economy and Industry Ministry famous that Israel has had water challenges “from day one,” in a area with little rain and an acute want to provide sustainable agriculture and feed its inhabitants.

Israel has wanted to “think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions,” Levin advised the viewers on the summit earlier this month. “We are proud to have had so many [water] success stories in Israel.”

Levin mentioned the share of water reuse in Israel was the very best in world. The nation reclaims some 90 % of its wastewater, primarily for agriculture.

“Water is a big story in Israel; it always has been. Water is being understood in most economies as critical infrastructure and of strategic importance,” mentioned Levin, including that nations have to think about points like provide, effectivity, and distribution.

With over 60% of its land being desert, Israel has pushed to create applied sciences to make each drop of water rely over the course of a number of many years. Today most of its consuming water comes from desalination services and it’s thought-about a world chief in all points of water administration.

There are some 250 corporations creating water applied sciences and gear in Israel, in response to figures supplied in 2019 by the Israel Export Institute, and the nation exports some $2.4 billion yearly in water applied sciences and gear. Over 180 startups function within the fields of water and wastewater remedy, irrigation, water programs, water community administration, desalination applied sciences, and water high quality detection, in response to the Finder database on Start-Up Nation Central, a non-profit that tracks the trade.

Some of those corporations have been readily available on the Israel Water Innovation Technology Summit this month to tout their options and choices, together with Asterra, an organization that may find and analyze water leaks from underground pipes utilizing satellite tv for pc knowledge; Kando, a wastewater intelligence and knowledge analytics agency; water-from-air agency Watergen; Caesarea‐based mostly NUFiltration, which repurposes dialyzers which have reached the top of their lives and makes use of them as water purification gadgets for creating nations; and Lishtot, a startup that developed testing gadgets to shortly detect contaminants in water such as E. coli, lead, arsenic, mercury, copper and chlorine.

Asterra and Kando already function in Italy with the assistance of Italian advisor and enterprise proprietor Franco Masenello, co-founder and CEO of BM Tecnologie Industriali and 2F Water Venture — Italy-based outfits that faucet Israeli water corporations for enterprise alternatives within the Italian civil, industrial and agricultural sectors.

“We already have many Italian customers using Asterra’s and Kando’s solutions,” Masenello advised The Times of Israel on the occasion.

Asterra CEO Elly Perets mentioned the corporate combines geophysics, sign processing, software program growth and knowledge evaluation to assist water enterprises establish water leaks and thus mitigate water loss.

“Pipes across the world are aging faster than the rate of replacement. We are seeing 0.5-2% of water loss a year,” Perets advised The Times of Israel, noting that this was a excessive quantity.

Asterra, he mentioned, has confirmed know-how that may “find three or four times, sometimes even 10 times, the number of leaks” of different options.

Founded in 2016 and previously identified as Utilis, Asterra says it could possibly establish subsurface water close to important infrastructure such as potable water and sewer pipes, roadways, railways, and dams, and supply artificial aperture radar (SAR) knowledge from satellites to decision-makers water utility corporations, authorities companies, and infrastructure companies.

In addition to Italy, Asterra has shoppers within the US, Britain, Croatia and Thailand and employs about 70 folks worldwide, however the firm has little industrial exercise in Israel past its R&D operations in Kfar Saba, the place it employs about 45 folks.

Israel has not less than 52 water firms that run water operations and providers for residents in cooperation with separate municipalities and regional councils — a setup Perets referred to as a “bardak that the devil did not create,” or horribly chaotic. “It’s just not efficient at all,” he mentioned.

Asterra focuses its actions exterior the nation and has a presence in Japan, China, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, mentioned Perets.

Scouting for startups

Masenello is now trying for extra Israeli water corporations to offer options to the Italian market.

“It is very important for us to match startups [with utility companies] and exchange experiences. We are looking for companies that will be a good fit with quick time-to-market, and launch more pilot programs,” Masenello mentioned, eyeing Israeli firm Takadu, the developer of a water occasion administration system, for a potential challenge in Italy.

Paola Pagnotta, the director of ClearTech, Agriculture, Consumer Goods, Industry 4.0 on the Italian embassy in Israel, advised The Times of Israel that the delegation of water utility corporations was the most important to Israel lately. “We’ve never seen such a large delegation in the utility sector for a focused event,” she mentioned.

These water utility corporations are trying for “ready technologies, mature technologies that can quickly be integrated into the markets,” she famous. At the identical time, “we also want to expose them to new technologies that are maybe not ready just yet — maybe in 2-3 years — that can be explored” in Italy.

As a part of the summit, the delegation of Italian corporations toured Mekorot’s Shafdan Wastewater Treatment Plant within the Tel Aviv space together with the R&D heart, as properly as the Palmachim Desalination Plant close to Ashdod, operated by the GES Global Environment Solutions Group (previously owned by the Azrieli Group).

Masenello mentioned such occasions are essential as delegates can share experiences and practices and study from Israel’s water successes.

“We hope to do this [summit] every year, hosted alternately in Israel and Italy and in different areas. We also want to generate ties with startups and strengthen relations with Mekorot and other water authorities. It’s not just for business, it also improves ties between countries,” he mentioned.

Drought in Italy

Italy, Masenello famous, is at present within the midst of one of many worst droughts in seven many years, particularly in northern areas.

Authorities concern that if it doesn’t rain quickly, there’ll be a critical scarcity of water for consuming and irrigation for farmers and native populations throughout the entire of northern Italy.

The drying up of the Po, which runs 652 kilometers (405 miles) from the northwestern metropolis of Turin to Venice, is jeopardizing consuming water in Italy’s densely populated and extremely industrialized districts and threatening irrigation in essentially the most intensively farmed a part of the nation, identified as the Italian meals valley. Parmesan cheese, wheat, and high-quality tomatoes, rice and famend grapes develop in large portions within the space.

The area hasn’t seen rainfall for greater than 110 days and this yr’s snowfall is down by 70%. Aquifers, which maintain groundwater, are depleted. Temperatures of two levels Celsius (3.6 levels Fahrenheit) above the seasonal common are melting the tiny snowfields and glaciers that have been left on the highest of the encircling Alps, leaving the Po basin with out its summer time water reservoirs.

All these elements are triggering the worst drought in 70 years, in response to the Po River Basin Authority.

Irrigation programs and power era operations are additionally in danger. If the Po dries up, quite a few hydroelectric energy vegetation might be dropped at a halt, at a time the place the conflict in Ukraine has already hiked up power costs throughout Europe.

The authority is engaged on a resilience plan that features greater draining from Alpine lakes, much less water for hydroelectric vegetation and rationing of water within the upstream areas.

AP contributed to this report.

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