Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | july 2014 | 19 The benefits were clear for STW, a vast reduction in the amount of time needed to find and fix leaks in plastic pipes, including a considerable reduc- tion in the number of 'dry holes' that needed to be dug – when a suspected leak is investigated only to find it's not a leak at all. It meant saving water, saving man hours and saving energy, resulting in further net savings both on the bottom line and in terms of emissions. STW, for example, estimates that losses from its own plastic pipes account for 1,400 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. Extrapolate the savings across every water company in the country and STW estimated that this new product could provide an opex benefit of approximately £5M per annum for the UK water industry. But, despite such strong field trial results, to make the most of the potential savings STW needed to take the product to market, and for that it needed a commercial partner. The ideal partnership That partner was Echologics, already a leader in the development of non- invasive acoustic technologies. Work- ing together, both companies have brought elements to the product's development that the other would not otherwise have had access to. From a commercial angle Echolog- ics provided expertise in manufactur- ing, engineering, advanced signal processing, so‹ware engineering, and low noise electronics. The company also had a long history of its own research into leak detection on plastic pipes it could bring to bear, and as a result could improve several aspects of the R&D programme. STW has been able to offer first- hand experience of a water util- ity's requirements. As a result, and building on the years of research and development, the product design and user interface has been done with STW technicians in mind. Those same end-users have also been able to provide crucial input during field test- ing which took place in an operating water system which was experiencing real leaks. Those commercial trials began in July 2013 and proved so successful that Echologics decided to take the product to market as its next generation noise correlator. It launched as the Leak- FinderST this spring. Almost immediately it has gained industry recognition. In March this year the project took home a Water Industry Achievement Award for the • Perspectives "The LeakFinderST has benefitted STW significantly by cutting the time and money spent on detecting leaks in plastic pipes. It also has the additional benefit of being able to detect leaks in metallic pipes meaning that one piece of kit can be used for leak detection. "In addition, it has led to a reduction in the number of 'dry holes' created when carrying out leak detection work. This is down to the fact that the product accu- rately pinpoints a genuine leak and in most cases the leak is found and plugged – in the past some leak detectors were inaccurate in terms of pinpointing genuine leaks. "We were aware of the work that Echologics undertake in this area and were keen to work with them on the commercial development of this product. They were at the top of the game in terms of benchmarking tests and were able to gain a high level of performance from the kit as we contin- ued to develop the product. The global potential for this product is significant and feedback has been very positive. There have already been orders from Malaysia." Julie Hart, senior process engineer, Severn Trent Water "The principal benefits to the water industry in general are that the LeakFinder ST is effective on plastic without the need to use Hydrophone sensors. It is faster than traditional techniques, thereby saving on correlation time per leak detect. It is also more accurate, therefore less dry holes are dug and associ- ated costs are cut." Mark Loveday, regional manager – Europe, Echologics • Innovations ● A partnership approach involving Severn Trent Water, Loughborough University and commercial partner Echologics has led to a full product launch. Why it works: ● Sensors were developed that have a low noise floor and high output in the low frequency range typically generated by leaks on plastic pipe. ● The velocity of the sound waves in plastic pipe is automatically calculated, resulting in more accurate location of leaks. ● Improved signal process- ing effectively analyses the low frequencies associated with leaks in plastic pipe.

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