Scottish Water heralds smart asset monitoring plan with promises for customers and environment

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

Scottish Water has claimed its investment in intelligent assets including remote sensors for its waste water infrastructure will “improve its service to customers, protect the environment, reduce costs and assist in its journey towards net zero carbon emissions.”

According to the company, trials of the new technology have shown that it will give the company “real-time insights into how its network is operating and enable it to be more proactive in how it responds to issues and to solve problems before customers and the environment are affected.”

The technology is being trialled in Erskine, Inverness, Lossiemouth and East Calder – four areas that have suffered from flooding and pollution events.

Scottish Water said it had already used data from sensors that detect blockages to avert potential environmental pollution incidents and flooding of customers’ premises.

The company went on to explain that it aims to access new and existing operational data from across its infrastructure via internet of things sensors and other devices to provide near real-time data. The associated reduction in site visits to gather 600 samples a day from its 1,800 treatment works would bring significant cost savings the company said.

It said poor access to real-time data on the quality of treatment or the condition and performance of critical assets means maintenance is more responsive than predictive. This makes energy consumption higher than it could be, and curtails asset life.

This real-time capability is being installed at 17 “exemplar” wastewater treatment works. At the Laighpark works in Paisley, Scottish Water has real-time final effluent compliance data which, together with real-time control and intervention, is helping to reduce its risk of compliance breaches as well as reduce energy consumption across the site.

And condition sensors have been installed on large assets such as pumps so the company’s maintenance teams can intervene should the sensor measurements go outside normal operating levels. This, Scottish Water said, would avert significant costs and pollution associated with pump failure while extending the asset’s life.

Scottish Water has invested more than £5m in the wastewater ‘exemplar’ work and about £2m in the sensors in the network pilots so far.

Atos and Capgemini are its digital partners, providing information technology services and supporting the water firm’s digital transformation.