Water & Wastewater Treatment

6 | DECEMBER 2015 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Comment T his month sees WWT introduce a new regular feature in the form of our 'Innovation Zone' (p26) which will examine the latest technology, inventions and innovative products which could make a difference to the way the industry operates. As it happens, our first technology featured – the UIS Transmatic coiled pipe pushing trailer – is a former winner of the Future Water Association's Water Dragons, a popular innovation competition of which there will be a national heat at our major exhibition of the year, Utility Week Live (held on 17th & 18th May 2016: www.utilityweeklive.co.uk for details). Innovation is one of the most ubiquitous buzzwords in the industry, and it comes in many forms. One of the most exciting technological innovations in recent years has been the spread of monitoring and metering technology and the way that this enables water companies to engage in smarter thinking across water and wastewater networks. Time to innovate An example of this can be found at Welsh Water where the control room is being transformed in to a 'Smart Hub' staffed by analysts capable of spotting data trends and the implications of individual alarms and signals. New data points can provide some interesting dilemmas for water companies, however, as our interview with Welsh Water's director of wastewater services Steve Wilson (p14) illustrates. The utility is rolling out event and duration monitors across 2000 combined sewer overflows (CSOs) in Wales, but Wilson is concerned about how the data on the operation of CSOs will go down with the public, at a time when the statistics show that bathing water and environmental quality in Wales has never been better. While being open about data with the public is a good thing, the worry is that CSO data will become a stick to beat water companies with, irrespective of whether the discharges in question are causing any significant harm to the environment. However, since this AMP period is all about water companies becoming more directly answerable to customers, and making such data available enables useful debate, there seems no case for keeping it secret. An attitude of openness can itself be a key element of innovation. Water companies can scarcely hope to James brockett eDItor JamesBrockett@fav-house.com Twitter: @wwtmag have all the answers themselves, and in all spheres of operation, making as much information as possible about their challenges publicly available can encourage the supply chain to come up with solutions. Company culture is also an important ingredient to innovation. When I visited Mohammed Saddiq of Wessex Water subsidiary GENeco in Bristol this month (see interview p29) I was struck by how founding GENeco as a separate organisation within the Wessex Water group had enabled it to develop a forward-thinking, open, experimental culture which was open to suggestions from more junior team members and from external partners. It is easier to create such an atmosphere in a small company, but with the right leadership it should be possible to recreate in larger companies as well. So, technology combined with analytical brains, an openness about sharing information, and a company culture that rewards rather than stifles original ideas – that sounds like the perfect recipe for innovation that can make a difference to the sector. -Follow James and WWT colleagues on Twitter: @wwtmag Industry view sponsored by allan Withers Factory and assembly manager, Jacopa Wastewater solutions and services experts Jacopa provide a specialist, be- spoke refurbishment facility that allows ageing or failing wastewater treatment equipment to be brought back to a work- ing condition. The company are experts in refurbishing equipment both in the field and at their unique facility in West Bromwich. If an asset is too large to bring back to the facility, Jacopa's highly- experienced team will work on site, disassembling and bringing back key items as required. When to renew and when to refurbish? Jacopa's Factory and Assembly Manager Allan Withers explains: "Wastewater treatment equipment, by the nature of the work it does, is highly contaminated, but we have the capability to ensure that it is made safe both for transporting to our site and for the intensive work that will be done as part of the refurbishment itself. "Our mechanical and electrical Service Teams have decades of experience, and at the West Bromwich site we have a consent license to discharge effluent that enables us to operate a fully compliant washdown area to the conditions set by the statutory water company. The facility enables us to give the assets a hot detergent wash to ensure they are clean and safe within a controlled area. It is a very specialised offering." On site, Jacopa has detailed operational guidelines that determine how equipment is handled and cleaned. There are also comprehensive guidelines to ensure mobile items can be transported safely and hygienically back to the West Bromwich facility. The health and safety of both the team,other personnel involved in the operation and the public is a key consideration. Allan Withers says: "Everything we do is risk assessed and carried out to high levels of Health and Safety best practice; we have to be aware not only of the risks to our own team but to others and to the wider environment. "When a refurbishment project is complete, we aim to return the item to service in the best possible condition, extending the life span of a valued asset by many years. For utilities, an expert refurbishment undertaken by our certified team, with its many decades of expertise, can be an attractive and better value alternative to purchasing new replacement equipment." To find out more about Jacopa's solutions and services, call +44 (0) 121 511 2400 or visit www.jacopa.com.

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