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UTILITY WEEK | 11TH - 17TH DECEMBER 2015 | 25 Operations & Assets Analysis T he water industry has seen "poo-pow- ered" buses, development testing cen- tres and investment in floating solar farms during 2015, all of which shows com- panies are constantly exploring new ways of doing things. Like the energy industry, the water sec- tor faces a trilemma – maintaining security of supply, keeping bills low, and reducing carbon emissions – and the companies are going out of their way to address it. Anglian Water: pollution-spotter planes The problem: Tougher European legislation means beaches have to meet stricter criteria, or face having to put up signs warning peo- ple against going in the sea. Anglian Water says it has spent more than £300 million fixing issues that were previ- ously affecting bathing water quality. How- ever, what remains are harder-to-pinpoint sources of pollution, which are easy to over- look from the ground. The solution: Anglian has started flying spot- ter planes along the Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire coastline armed with high- tech equipment. They can take hundreds of highly-detailed photographs to identify sources of pollution that can harm rivers, estuaries and the sea. Sources expected to be documented include: slurry from farms; animal waste from fields; sediment disturbed through river dredging; trade waste; and poorly main- tained private cess pits and privately owned sewerage systems. The firm hopes the photographic evi- dence from the camera will help persuade offenders to fix the problems. Southern Water: Thanet Groundwater Scheme The problem: Southern Water owns a sewer network that was built a century ago beneath Ramsgate using chalk tunnels rather than trenches to house the pipes. This has proved a problem when it comes to repair. The solution: The company devised and implemented a system of sewer rehabilita- tion to repair 20km of sewers and 96 man- holes. The firm found an innovative solution adapting the cured-in-place pipe system, which allows a flexible composite liner to be pulled through a tunnel where it is inflated by compressed air. An ultra violet light train is then pulled through the liner to cure the UV-sensitive resin to create a new pipe lining. This system has been used widely to repair existing pipes but the Southern Water team adapted it, designing a specially rein- forced liner structurally capable of becoming the pipe itself. Northumbrian Water: gas-to-grid The problem: Northumbrian Water uses all the sludge produced by its sewage treatment to generate renewable electricity. However, it wanted to turn some of this sludge into gas for injection into the gas grid. The solution: The company is in the process of commissioning an £8 million gas-to-grid plant at the mouth of the Tyne, which has been built alongside its advanced anaerobic digestion plant. The anaerobic digestion involves pretreat- ing sewage sludge to release methane. This biogas is stored to be used to power a 10MW plant, and in the future can be fed into the gas-to-grid process. Welsh Water: Five Fords WTW The problem: The not-for-profit company currently generates around 11 per cent of its energy needs, but aims to increase this to 25 per cent by 2020. It also aims to reduce the amount of energy used on site by 5 per cent within five years. The solution: Welsh Water is investing in a £24 million project at Five Fords wastewa- ter treatment works near Wrexham, where it will combine advanced anaerobic digestion, wind and solar, hydroelectric and gas to grid – a biogas upgrade plant. The renewable energy generated will be equivalent to that used in 5,000 homes. The company believes this will be the first wastewater site of its kind in the UK and will help reduce operating costs. Yorkshire Water: REVO technology The problem: Yorkshire Water spends more than £50 million a year on electricity, of which 75 per cent is due to consumption dur- ing high tariff periods. The solution: The firm developed technology that allows it to understand which assets require the most energy and plot their use around the times of day when they will be cheapest to run. The REVO soware solu- tion can identify which electricity tariffs will be most effective in reducing the company's energy bill, and identify the most efficient assets to run. The scheme has so far delivered savings for Yorkshire Water across 60 sites and is projected to save almost £1 million next year. The company hopes to develop the com- mercial opportunities that the soware offers because it provides solutions to a number of industry-wide issues. Five water innovations of 2015 Water companies are constantly having to innovate to save money or to find better ways of solving problems – and 2015 was no different. Lois Vallely looks at five of the best from the sector. Anglian Water: a spotter plane armed with high-tech imaging equipment can detect pollution