Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JUNE 2015 | 7 Comment L eakage is a perennial reputational issue for the country's water companies, and while great strides have been made towards reducing it over the years, it remains a challenge that will never go away. Similarly, reducing the energy use of pumps is a key imperative, as the industry seeks to reduce energy bills and meet carbon reduction targets. So what happens when two key goals like this come into conflict with each other? An example of this is cited by Dr Paul Linford of Syrinix, who is the subject of this month's WWT profile interview (see P11). He noted that efforts to ensure the optimal use of pumps in recent years have led to more fluctuations in pumping intensity as pumps are turned on and off, and therefore more transients occurring in the network. Transients, which are pressure spikes caused by water surging Smartening up along the pipes, can weaken pipelines over time and contribute to leaks and bursts. According to Dr Linford, water utilities are increasingly concerned about tracking transients and understanding how they operate in the network. Of course, it's not just pumps that can be responsible for transients, but valves too, and human beings (operatives using equipment incorrectly, such as opening and closing valves too quickly, is a major cause). But without an understanding of transients, utilities run the risk of missing out on key knowledge about how their distribution networks operate. An approach to leakage which concentrates on mending bursts and spills, without keeping tabs on one of the possible causes, risks treating the symptom and not the illness. Many things in today's world are interconnected, in ways that it can be easy to miss at first glance – and this observation certainly holds true for water networks. One asset that is in poor condition can have a knock-on effect on another, and an event in one section of pipeline can manifest itself in other sections miles away. It's part of the reason why technology such as monitoring and metering, which can James brockett eDItor JamesBrockett@fav-house.com Twitter: @wwtmag provide reams of data for the industry, should not be used in isolation but as part of a smart network. Information gleaned from one part of the network should be used to inform decisions about the rest of it, helping to move the industry's work from being reactive to being proactive, and even predictive. All this is easier said than done. But with the Internet of Things (IoT) offering the prospect of a future in which devices of all kinds, large and small, are connected to the web, technology and finance should not remain a barrier to such ambitions for long. Rather, skills and cultural factors will be all that are holding utilities back from realising the smart water vision. As Dr Linford observes, water companies have vastly different outlooks when it comes to innovation, with some far ahead of others in their mindset and readiness to adopt more analytical approaches. When it comes to spreading such thinking, there's no substitute for another type of networking – old- fashioned discussion and professional knowledge-sharing – in order to disseminate best practice. One thing is for sure, smart water looks like being anything but a transient phenomenon.