It sounds fanciful: completing underground utilities connections without digging holes. Yet, thanks to a new product from National Grid and technology partner Synthotech, achieving this engineering utopia may be far more than a pipe dream.
The Tier One Replacement System (Tors) is a “mechatronic snake” that can perform mains-to-service connections from inside an existing mains pipeline. National Grid hopes the technology will make a major contribution to its target of halving all excavations in the UK by 2017, as well as increasing productivity in the gas distribution part of the business by 20-30 per cent by slashing the time it takes to complete replacement connections.
Since it will significantly reduce the number of excavations needed to complete replacement connections for any given street or business site, the platform is also being hailed as a means of achieving a gas customer experience revolution.
The modular, flexible platform has been in development since November 2012 and has received about £2 million of funding from National Grid’s innovation allowance under RIIO (Ofgem’s new regulatory regime). Tors made its public debut at the Low Carbon Networks and Innovation Conference in October 2014 and attracted attention from visitors to the National Grid stand. This year it is due to begin field testing at sites across the UK and there is an ambition to see it become fully operational by early 2016.
While engineers have dreamed of using robotics to achieve remote subterranean connections for years, the capabilities of Tors have only recently become possible thanks to a concatenation of technological advances, many centring on the ability to miniaturise the sensors, motors, tools and processing power on board. The University of Leeds, a centre of excellence for robotic design, has been a valuable partner to Synthotech throughout the development of Tors.
“This is a world first,” says Darren White, innovation portfolio manager at National Grid. “Ofgem’s funding has allowed us to exploit Synthotech’s potential and create something that is really cutting edge. Without the Ofgem funding mechanism, this kind of partnership could not take place.”
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