Water quality as a service offered to UK utilities

The UK's water utilities are being offered real-time water quality data and insights as a service by technology company Siemens.

Accelerating the pace of digital transformation

According to Siemens, Water Quality Analytics as a Service (WQAaaS) is designed to simply and de-risk 'the process of bringing insight directly into water company operations, accelerating the pace of digital transformation'.

The service will offer real-time water quality data and insights via the installation and management of sensors, provided through data connectivity, data visualisation, integration with existing data sources, and analytical insights 'from the treatment works to the customer's tap'.

Dr John Gaffney, Siemens technical lead for the Water Quality programme, told media: "There are no scale deployments of clean water quality sensors in the UK water industry: the cost:benefit historically didn't stack up. This was due to unknowns around 'how best to manage sensors' and also the time-consuming nature of manual data analysis."

He added: "Now these have been overcome through business model design and analytics integration, WQAaaS can be transformative. It gives every UK water company the opportunity to change the paradigm for how they manage their real-time water quality."

Improving maintenance regimes in drinking water networks

Operators at the utilities will be able to use analytics modules that are deployed in a secure cloud platform. Analysis of the data being sent from the sensors will allow utilities to review travel time throughout their network, including quantifying the movement of materials. Not only will this help in managing the risk of bacterial growth in water that has remained in the system for long periods, but it will also highlight the risk of water discolouration.

With this information, operators will be able to target appropriate interventions in the system, optimising water safety processes and response to incidents, reducing both cost and operational risk. Long-term, the use of the WQAaaS analytics will help to shape network management.

Partnering with Northumbrian Water

The idea of WQAaaS was conceived by both Siemens and Northumbrian Water at the Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival in 2020, with further development input from Water Infrastructure Engineering group at The University of Sheffield.

The same analytical service approach is currently being used by Northumbrian Water in the Ofwat-funded 'Treatment to Tap' project, which supplies over 100,000 Teesside residents with clean drinking water.

Alan Brown, head of Water Quality for Northumbrian Water, said: "Our customers' expectations are increasing, and we can only meet them by being bold and innovating. Our goal is that nine out of 10 customers choose tap over bottled water, and real-time water quality information will help us get there by getting ahead of problems so we can intervene before customers become aware."

Joby Boxall, professor of water infrastructure engineering at the University of Sheffield, said: "Water quality data is being collected from UK water networks at a volume that has never been seen before. Unlocking value from this requires innovative analytics that provides actionable insights to inform proactive management. Our research with Siemens and the Ofwat funded 'Treatment to Tap' project are world leading examples of this."

Getting ahead of AMP8 performance commitments

According to Siemens, the service will also help UK utilities 'push the standard against the demanding performance commitments that will be set for AMP8'.

AMP8 (eighth asset management period, set by UK regulator Ofwat) sets the framework for how water companies manage assets, deliver services to customers, and invest in their infrastructure over a five-year period.