Yorkshire Water has gone out to tender with an AMP8/9 contract for Continuous Water Quality Monitoring hardware and services worth an estimated £97.5 million.

Yorkshire Water has a statutory obligation to deliver continuous water quality monitoring up and downstream of all discharges for parameters as outlined in the Interim Technical Standard of Section 82 of the Environmental Act 2021.

The water company has a requirement to ensure continuous water quality monitoring of the receiving watercourse upstream and downstream of storm overflows and wastewater treatment works, with monitoring data collected to be available to the public in a near real-time manner.

Yorkshire Water is now seeking expressions of interest for the establishment of a contract for Continuous Water Quality Monitoring (CWQM) related to:

Site Planning & Investigations

Yorkshire Water requires the supplier to conduct on-site survey in designated monitoring locations to identify optimal site for monitoring equipment installation and devise deployment plan. Testing on-site instrument connectivity and transmission of monitoring data. The supplier is also responsible for developing investigation/ pilots to assess site suitability for continuous water quality monitoring in a number of environments, such as estuarine, coastal and complex inland locations.

Hardware and Data Transmission

Yorkshire Water requires the supplier to secure water quality monitoring sensors for deployment that meet technical specifications, as outlined in the Interim Technical Standard of Section 82 of the Environmental Act 2021, and can reliably operate in the riverine environments. The supplier would be responsible to set up network for data transmission from on-site sensors with potential integration with Yorkshire Water's internal data management system. The supplier would also be providing necessary equipment and deploying appropriate measures for the secured housing of monitoring and telemetry assets.

Install, Maintain & Calibration

Yorkshire Water requires a relationship with a supplier to deploy monitoring sensors at identified installation sites. Devising servicing programme that includes regular maintenance, calibration and reactive repair in alignment with technical specifications outlined in the Interim Technical Standard of Section 82 of the Environmental Act 2021. The supplier would also be responsible for implementing necessary patching / updates on equipment software, and, in case of hardware failure, taking immediate mitigating actions to guarantee data availability and conducting failure investigations.

Data Visualisation & Analysis - Development and maintenance of a public-friendly online portal that visualises monitoring data in near real-time manner (normal data update every hour, with capability to increase frequency to every 15 minutes). The supplier would also develop relevant analysis tool to automatically generate insights from data, which can be leveraged to devise action plans under different scenarios.

The agreement is expected to be the primary route for selecting supplier(s) for the delivery of CWQM hardware and services for the duration of the contract which will be tendered in 2 separate Lots:

Lot 1 - Data as a Service - managed service model 

Under the "Data as a service" Managed Service model, the bidder is expected to take ownership of installed hardware for the duration of agreement (and its extension). While bidders have flexibility on the arrangements post-installation, they would be fully accountable, on behalf of Yorkshire Water, to satisfy requirements on hardware functionality and data availability.

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Lot 2 - Asset Ownership model

Under the Asset Ownership model, Yorkshire Water will purchase and take ownership of the installed hardware from bidder, and the bidder must comply with maintenance and calibration schedule defined by Yorkshire Water.

Yorkshire Water will reserve the right to either award everything to the lead supplier under Lot 1 or Lot 2.

Suppliers who want to express an interest in participating in the tender are asked to contact David Archer via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 5pm on 9th October 2024.

Once a bidder expresses an interest, a Selection Question (SQ) document pack will be shared with them at a later date. This will include the SQ document that must be completed by all bidders and submitted in line with the deadlines included within the pack, which will be after the deadline to express an interest, giving bidders enough time to complete the documents.

Following an assessment of the SQ responses received, successful bidders will be invited to participate in the ITT which is planned for November 2024.

Initial contract term is 84 months, with further extension options renewal up to a total of 36 months.

Click here to access the tender documentation.