Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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12 | MAY 2018 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Proactive network management 'key for PR19' T he arrival of PR19 heralds some fun- damental changes in the regulatory regime, Ofwat's Ian Pemberton told the WWT Smart Water Networks Confer- ence. The conference, which took place in Birmingham on 20 March, was held against the backdrop of PR19, the regime that will cover pricing from 2020. Pemberton, the regulator's principal engineer, analytics, said: "The existing structure set a bar that companies are expected to reach and provides little incentive for companies to outperform. "The new approach is distinctly holis- tic in style and is intended to encourage the industry to move from reactive to proactive network management, and to make a stronger case for innovation – all of which smart networks should be able to do." Paint a clear picture Achievement of genuine smart networks requires a clear picture of what the indus- try wants and means of data collection and analysis, according to representatives of supply-chain companies present at the conference. There are lessons to be learned from elsewhere in the world – such as Australia and Canada – and from other industries. The talk: Events Manufacturing uses sensors and monitors in predictive maintenance programs, such as OEE (operational equipment effective- ness), and as the backbone of IIoT (indus- trial internet of things) and Industry 4.0. SES Water's innovation manager, Jeremy Heath, discussed emerging tech- nologies that will take the network close to real time monitoring. These include low power wide area networks (LPWAN) and LoRa networks, which use radio in the 868MHz bandwidth. LPWAN has been tested in other countries, such as Spain, including in water companies. SES is trialling these systems for new hous- ing developments (LoRa) and sprinkler systems (LWPAN). Perfection isn't necessary One of the hurdles to adoption of this sort of technology has been concern that each individual sensor and data collection device has to be perfect. Heath challenged this. "Each sensor is important but does not provide a definitive result," he said, and gave the example of Google Waze, which uses 'fuzzy logic' to analyse traffic flows on highways. Rather than relying on individual sensors (e.g. GPS trackers), which may give a misleading picture – a taxi stopping to pick up a passenger may Smart technology enables water companies to proactively manage their networks, and the coming price review will incentivise this approach Ruari McCallion reports from Birmingham suggest a traffic jam, for example – data collected from a larger number of mobile phones will give a better picture of what is actually happening. Why not now? "Why are these things on the agenda at the moment and why are they not being done already?" Mike Strahand, managing director Europe at ATI, asked, and further challenged the audience to consider whether these are realistic goals and whether they are worth the effort. "I believe we are on the flightpath to smart networks," he said, in response to his own questions. "Data, data collection and data analysis are fundamental to the journey." As to why the issues are arising now, he said: "The stars have aligned. There are loads of Cloud-based platforms; data storage is practically free. 5G will deliver tremendous data capability. Processing power is growing more per hour than in the past 70 years." The means of collecting data – sen- sors – are now small and easily deployed, whether for measuring flow, water quality, pipe integrity or anything else to do with the asset base. The effective deploy- ment depends on something else, which requires a shi§ in traditional operating behaviour. "Collaboration is essential. The supply chain and water companies must work together, properly," he said. Openness, even between competitors, must be encouraged. "Some things will never be open but flow data, water quality and how problems are solved can be." While a lot of sensors will have to be installed, a lot are already in place, on machinery and equipment. There is so much data already being collected and with the potential to be collected that the challenge becomes making effective use of it. Harnessing 'dark data' "The water business has masses of data but it doesn't trust it," Alexander Mahon, dark data specialist at PA Consulting, said. "Dark data has been defined as data that is collected but isn't used. For us: data is data; it's how it's structured that is important." To many businesses – including water – it is the trend that is important, not the SPONSORED BY