Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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In Focus: Leaks & bursts 16 | JANUARY 2020 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Steve Kaye, chief executive of UKWIR, talks about the importance of leakage research and how an innovation heatmap could help speed up progress in this area. Leaks from underground pipes that carry treated drinking water have been a major political, technical and repu- tational issue for all water companies for many years. Since 1997, leakage has been reduced by 40 per cent but much work remains to be done as around 20 per cent of all the drinking water pro- duced is still lost from pipes – not just companies' pipes, but from those inside homes and businesses too. Today, customers, regulators and government expect water companies to reduce leakage much further than they have up until now and achieve those reductions more quickly too. Due to the challenging leakage targets that every water company in the UK has to deliver there has been a renewed focus on how leakage can be reduced. The stark truth is a quantum leap will need to be made on leakage per- formance, which is why it is one of our big questions: How do we achieve zero leakage in a sustainable way by 2050? That big question also chimes with the Public Interest Commitment the entire water sector has signed up to – that is, it will at least triple the rate of sector- wide leakage reduction by the earlier date of 2030. With that regulatory context in mind, we've produced a route map with circa 30 projects identified that will look at leakage with an emphasis on Preven- tion, Awareness, Locate and Mend (PALM). Our work is not just focused on water companies' assets but also on customers' supply pipes as demon- strated by our recent project – 'Under- standing the balance between customer side usages, supply pipe leakage and plumbing losses'. We've also recognised that a lot of individual water companies invest heav- ily in research and innovation to help deliver their stretching leakage targets, and not least to meet their own custom- ers' expectations. But leakage is an industry wide issue – the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts – and so, in an industry-first, we are mapping out all the current leakage research and innovations that are taking place within the water sector (including the supply chain, consultants and academia) with the aim of sharing findings. This exercise will, for the first time, provide an innovation heatmap for leakage research. We believe this will not only allow us to focus our own resources in areas that are not cur- rently being explored but also improve engagement and collaboration within the industry. I believe there is a great opportunity to take a more centralised approach to support high priority innovation for the UK water sector and our work on leak- age is a shining example of that. Our big questions programme (we have 12 of them in all) provides the comprehensive framework to drive transformational change around specific challenges. It is also a place to target dedicated funding to support the end-to-end innovation process, drive greater collaboration and deliver tangible outcomes that benefit water companies, customers and the environment. Now that is a quantum leap worth taking. • RESEARCH CRITICAL TO MAKING QUANTUM LEAP ON LEAKAGE and putting more people on the ground to find more leaks. Planned schemes are in place to deliver mutliple benefits, along with leakage and other ODIs." TM: "Reducing leakage is a top priority for Thames Water and our customers and that is why we have delivered a 27 per cent reduction in leakage over the past 15 years. However, we want to do even bet- ter, so we have ambitious plans to do this backed by a strong focus on our perfor- mance. Our plans centre around two key areas. First, innovation and improving the productivity of our leak repair work. Second, improving our data to help us work smarter." Q. How vast is your network and what sort of impact can ageing infrastructure have when it comes to leaks & bursts? ML: "We have 37.5km of pipes in the North East of England, as well as 26.5km in Essex and Suffolk. Older pipes are more likely to fail, resulting in a higher frequency of bursts and leaks." PT: "It's high impact because when you fix leaks it tends to find the next weak- est spot within the network. We have 13,500km of water mains, customer supply pipes, and trunk mains services reservoirs which all contribute to leakage levels. All of these structures have to be maintained." TM: "Thames Water's network of pipes stretches for 31,550km, which is almost long enough to wrap around the world. With almost two-thirds of our pipes being over 60 years old, and around half of those actually being over 100 years old, the age of our infrastructure does play a part in the challenge we face due to the natural wear and tear pipes are subjected to over time." Q. What type of role can data play when it comes to detecting and fixing leaks? ML: "Data can really help improve ac- curacy of the calculations and efficiency of the workforce, and inform a move to a more predictive approach, rather than reactive. For example, at our first Innova- tion Festival in 2017, we had dozens of experts crunching data from a huge array of sources, and this led to a process of leakage heat mapping that allows us to target those areas where we can make the "Looking forward, there are a number of emerging challenges as we reduce leakage to new all-time low levels. It is likely that leaks will be smaller on average, which will make them more difficult to find."