"We have been examining every product 1-to-1 for 25 years to ensure quality."

The Institute for Underground Infrastructure IKT provides a high-quality sewage network that works well and does not cost too much. All in a neutral, non-profit and independent manner. "As a citizen with a home, you simply pay sewerage charges. We want to make sure that those sewerage charges don't rise too much so that your tax on sewerage stays as low as possible," said Business Unit Manager Sebastiaan Luimes.

IKT was founded in 1994 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, but has also had a branch in the Netherlands since April 2012. That location is an important link in the exchange of knowledge between Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. "We were founded to gather all knowledge in the field of the sewerage network and to acquire it ourselves. To then share that knowledge again at seminars, training courses and public reports."

IKT is engaged in researching underground infrastructure on a daily basis. "We mainly do research on cold renovation in the Netherlands. We check in a laboratory whether the cold renovations that have been installed meet the quality mandated by the network operators. In this we are the only ones in the Netherlands."

Climate Adaptation

As an Institute for Underground Infrastructure, IKT also deals with root growth and structural analyses that allow them to examine pipe systems. So in 2018, they received 11 million euros in funding to open a new test hall in Gelsenkirchen. "Climate adaptation is of course a hot-topic, but we will actually do research on it. In the new test hall there will be a large rain shower measuring 10 by 20 meters where we can investigate all kinds of setups scale 1-to-1. The insights that emerge from this will also be used for training and public publications."

And that all ties in with IKT's philosophy. "When you develop a product, you often have models that predict a certain behavior. Then if you're talking about climate adaptation and extreme showers, you can very well put that into a model of how you think the product will handle a rainstorm. But with a home-made model you can just make mistakes. That's why we do it in the most neutral and independent way possible and have been researching everything scale 1-to-1 for 25 years to guarantee quality."