The UK water industry is navigating one of the most demanding regulatory periods in its history. With Ofwat’s strict PR24 targets in force, the pressure on performance commitments is unprecedented. The directive is clear: companies must deliver more with less. Perhaps no metric captures this challenge more acutely than Non-Revenue Water (NRW). Alastair MacLeod, Ground Control, investigates.
The industry is well aware of the statistic: approximately three billion litres of water are lost to leakage every day in England and Wales. While utilities have made admirable strides in addressing major bursts and securing urban networks, the law of diminishing returns is beginning to bite. The ‘easy’ leaks have largely been fixed. What remains is a far more complex challenge – managing ageing infrastructure in remote, rural, and difficult-to-access terrain.
For senior executives and network directors, the blind spots in these off-grid locations represent a significant operational risk. The inability to monitor assets in real-time creates a ‘cost of silence’, where small leaks in trunk mains or remote reservoirs go undetected until they become catastrophic failures.
Historically, this has been a problem of connectivity. Extending cellular networks to every valley and rural outpost is physically and financially impossible. Conversely, while proprietary satellite solutions have long provided excellent coverage, the cost of hardware and airtime has made them prohibitive for mass-market sensor deployment. This ‘connectivity barrier’ has effectively stalled digital transformation at the edge of the network.
However, a shift in the telecommunications landscape is about to dismantle this barrier.
The standardisation breakthrough
The solution lies in the emergence of NTN NB-IoT (Non-Terrestrial Network Narrowband Internet of Things). While the acronym is a mouthful, the concept is elegant in its simplicity. NTN NB-IoT is a standards-based technology that allows data to travel over satellite links using the exact same protocols as terrestrial cellular NB-IoT.
This is a profound shift from the proprietary satellite models of the past. Because NTN NB-IoT utilises standard 3GPP protocols, it allows manufacturers to use the same mass-produced chipsets found in terrestrial devices. This economies-of-scale approach drives down hardware costs significantly.
Furthermore, these devices are engineered for extreme power efficiency. By focusing on small data payloads and intermittent transmissions, NTN NB-IoT-enabled sensors can operate for years on battery or solar power. For a utility manager, this changes the economic calculus entirely. It means that deploying thousands of sensors to monitor remote pipelines, meters, and tanks is no longer a financial impossibility, but a viable operational strategy.
Turning data into water
The application of this technology goes far beyond simple connectivity; it is about actionable intelligence that directly reduces NRW and operational expenditure (OPEX).
Consider pipeline integrity. Currently, many remote trunk mains are monitored via manual inspections or inferred data. By the time a major pressure drop is noticed, the burst has often already occurred. With affordable NTN NB-IoT sensors, utilities can implement proactive pressure and flow monitoring. By analysing low-frequency snapshots and structural vibration logs, operators can detect the long-term trends and anomalies that indicate a developing leak or blockage, allowing for intervention before water is lost.
Remote metering is another area ripe for transformation. The cost of sending a technician to read a meter at a remote farm or industrial site is disproportionately high. NTN NB-IoT enables these ‘stranded’ assets to transmit daily or multi-hour readings automatically. This eliminates estimated billing, improves customer satisfaction, and provides the granular usage data required to spot leakage on the customer side.
Then there’s asset health and compliance. Environmental regulations require strict monitoring of water quality at intakes and discharge points. Automating the collection of pH, turbidity, and level data from remote sites ensures 100 per cent regulatory compliance without the carbon footprint and cost of constant ‘truck rolls’.
Choosing the right tool for the job
However, as we embrace this new technology, we must also exercise discernment. In the rush to digitise, there is a risk of viewing NTN NB-IoT as a silver bullet. It is not. It is a specific tool for a specific job.
Network architects must understand the distinction between ‘monitoring’ and ‘control’. NTN NB-IoT is designed for delay-tolerant data. It is the perfect solution for a tank level reading that needs to be updated every few hours, or a daily meter read. It is less suited for applications requiring sub-minute latency.
If a utility requires instant leak alerts, real-time valve actuation to isolate a burst pipe, or high-frequency SCADA telemetry, proprietary satellite solutions (such as Iridium’s Short Burst Data) remain the superior choice. These services offer the low latency and two-way command capabilities that mission-critical control systems demand.
At Ground Control, we advocate for a hybrid approach. A truly resilient water network is not built on a single technology but is an optimised ecosystem. It uses high-performance proprietary links for critical control nodes and cost-effective NTN NB-IoT for the thousands of sensors that provide network visibility.
Closing the gap
The technology to close the visibility gap in our water networks is no longer on the horizon; it is here. The arrival of standards-based satellite IoT means that the ‘too remote’ or ‘too expensive’ excuses for data blindness no longer hold water.
By strategically deploying NTN NB-IoT alongside existing infrastructure, UK water utilities can finally bring the furthest reaches of their networks online. This is the key to moving from reactive firefighting to proactive network management, ultimately driving down leakage and delivering the resilience that regulators and public demand.
We encourage utility leaders to look at their blind spots not as unfixable problems, but as candidates for this new wave of connectivity. The tools are ready; it is time to turn them on.
groundcontrol.com
