A burst pipe soon thing of the past?
News about new investment in Israeli cleanteach tends to be dominated by announcements of new and advanced technologies being invented, or massive investment in world leading solar technology, but the latest news are of a more mundane nature: Israeli business daily Globes is reporting that Dexia Israel Bank is planning to move from financing of municipal water projects to investing in solar and wind power.
Local focus
Dexia Israel Bank, formally known as the Local Municipal Treasury Bank before 65% was acquired in 2001 by the European International Dexia Group, focuses on providing banking services to the public and municipal sector in Israel. This includes short and long-term credit, receipt of deposits, current accounts and other banking services.
Standard & Poor’s Ma’alot as the Israeli branch of the global rating agency is known gives Dexia Israel Bank the very high A-1+ rating. Dexia Israel Bank has extended NIS 360 million in financing for municipal water projects, 45% of this NIS 800 million market, according to Globes.
A tough market segment
A recent report by global consulting firm Ernst & Young noted at while there are numerous Israeli startups active in the fields of water treatment will face trouble as their municipal counterpart tend to be slow moving and not technology driven, so it remains to see whether or not Dexia’s new financing may change this or not.
Water at the end of the pipe
Despite the challenges outlined by Ernst& Young there are several interesting water project going on in Israel one is a project by IBM, which isn’t really a start-up, –– the company is transferring knowledge from the IT world to develop a system to detect water leaks and ever predict possible pipe bursts, saving both money and water.
A similar program has been developed by Israeli start up TaKaDu that uses both online and historical data, and requires no special technology on the client’s side and takes the data fed to it from a waterworks facility and uses it to detect leaks and help the facility to prioritize repairs.
Photo by holisticmonkey and story by Globes
More on the green water projects:
Strategic Foresight Group’s Forecasts for Water in the Middle East
Ernst & Young: Israeli Government Must Pick Up CleanTech Glove
IBM Transfer IT Know-how to Water Conservation in Israel
TaKaDu Adds Brains to the “Dumb” Water Grid
