By Dr John Gaffney, Technical Lead for the Water Quality programme at Siemens UK & Ireland
With technological change set to transform the UK’s water sector, Dr John Gaffney, technical lead for the Water Quality programme at Siemens UK & Ireland, explores the role collaboration will play in implementing and scaling innovations.
Much ink has been spilled, highlighting the potential for technology to drive transformational change in the water sector.
Operators have a growing selection of advanced tools at their disposal. For example, smart condition monitoring initiatives are using digital sensors to track metrics including water quality, helping utilities to continually evaluate infrastructure health and to detect issues before they escalate.
However, the digitalisation of the water industry is still in its infancy. But take the perennial and future challenges facing the sector – decarbonisation, network leakages, water quality management – and it’s clear that accelerating and scaling innovative solutions will be key.
Of course, these represent major operational challenges. For example, tackling leaks across a UK-wide network of pipes long enough to wrap around the equator 8.6 times is no easy feat. The technology is here to help, but success will hinge on its implementation and its scaling through sharing successes.
Obstacles to adoption
Transformative tools like real-time data analytics and AI require foundational technology to be in place that is still largely absent across the industry. Without this, achieving meaningful improvements in water quality management, for example, isn’t viable.
There are a number of reasons why the large-scale rollout of this digital infrastructure isn’t already happening, with several barriers making it difficult for water companies to adopt and integrate new tools on a large scale.
For example, some utilities may lack the fiscal headroom for any major capital expenditure. Yet investment to make crucial infrastructure improvements will herald cost savings in the long term.
Alongside this, many operators may need to develop or recruit skills to successfully manage digitalised networks. Without specialised skills and dedicated resources, water companies will find it difficult to harness the full value of digital tools, reducing the overall impact these investments can have, even if they are implemented.
Collaboration is key
It will be hard for utilities to address these barriers by themselves. The challenge calls for a collaborative, cross-sector approach across the industry and its supply chain, to allow expertise and resources to be shared. Beyond simply offering products or services, technology providers can act as strategic partners in driving industry-wide improvements.
This partnership-based approach encourages the creation of innovative business models and solutions to make new technologies and innovations more accessible, and better tailored to the sector’s specific needs.
There are already a number of examples of this outlook delivering in practice For instance, at Siemens we recently launched the Water Quality Analytics as a Service (WQAaaS) model. Developed in partnership with Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) and the University of Sheffield, WQAaaS allows operators to outsource the installation and management of sensors that monitor water quality data in real time.
The benefit is that the entire package is offered in a single fee. This means that operators can gain from the end-to-end delivery of water quality analytics under a payment structure that works for them.
Another pioneering example is the Severn Trent Net Zero Hub, through which a partnership of UK and Irish water companies and industry providers are working to develop the world’s first carbon neutral wastewater treatment plant. Underpinned by Siemens’ digital twin technology, the project is aiming to be a beacon in the transformation of water utilities over the next decade by demonstrating how cutting-edge innovations can help reduce and remove CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions from the wastewater treatment process.
This is a shining example of what can be achieved when knowledge is pooled and siloes are broken down.
Such a digital-based, collaborative model is one that needs to be replicated in the next few years to meet the dual-challenge of reducing environmental spills and emissions from plants that are likely to need to treat greater throughput.
The path ahead
There’s no denying the rapid pace of innovation in the water sector – but technological advances alone are not enough. A failure to capitalise on this wave of new technology will impact the industry’s ability to transform in line with changing consumer, environmental and regulatory needs.
Meaningful progress depends on the willingness of water operators and technology providers to break down traditional barriers to collaboration. By doing so, they can overcome the limitations of current infrastructure, unlock new standards of performance and ultimately deliver cleaner, safer water to the communities they serve.
