SES Water has partnered with Vodafone to use its Internet of Things technology to find and prevent leaks.
The 10-year deal builds on Vodafone’s smart water network pilot with South East Water last year to assist SES with cutting leakage by 15 per cent in the next five years.
The project across three counties and into south London uses digital water meters, sensors and acoustic loggers on underground mains water pipes. These connect via Vodafone’s narrowband radio wave Internet of Things network to give more detailed coverage particularly underground or in built up areas.
Acoustic loggers can pinpoint the location of a leak and the data collected and transmitted across the system will be analysed to alert SES of any leaks or abnormalities in the network.
Within households data from smart meters give insight into usage to let people manage their usage as well as spotting leaks on customers’ pipework.
Daniel Woodworth, network strategy manager, said the project would revolutionise how the company finds leaks in the mains and on properties.
“In the future it could even enable us to predict and prevent pipeline failure before it happens,” Woodworth said. “It will put our operational teams in a position of knowledge, not only enabling us to reduce the water we take from the natural environment but also further minimising interruptions to supply, and in doing so provide a gold standard service for our customers for many years to come.”
The Internet of Things technology uses narrowband radio waves and operates at low power so the equipment can last up to 10 years.
SES Water was set a target of reducing leakage by 15 per cent over the next five years and further intends to halve it by 2045.