BQ3 - How do we achieve zero interruptions to water supplies by 2050?

ROUTE MAPCASE STUDIES

We are currently working on the approach to answering this Big Question, and more information will be given here soon.

The areas that this Big Question covers includes:

  • Evaluate if we are contributing harmful plastics to the water cycle
  • Establish their source and effective control measures to remove them

Once we understand where the gaps are, we will produce a route map – this is a plan as to how we will answer our Big Question.

The route map will have a number of key elements. At the top will be our Big Question and then we will look to see what Outcomes we need from the research programme -if we can achieve all these outcomes we can answer the Big Question. This is the stage we are currently at for this Big Question.

The next stage will be to think about the key benefits we want the research projects to deliver to meet these outcomes.

Following this, we will plan the research projects to help deliver the benefits.

UKWIR – the UK and Irish water industry’s research body – has commissioned the first study of its kind in the UK to develop a robust approach to sampling and detection of microplastic particles in the treated water cycle. This included accurately measuring the presence of microplastic particles in potable (drinking) water, treated wastewater and in the solid residues (sludge) produced by both the water and wastewater treatment processes. Please click here to view more information.

Research Outcomes

All work carried out the assets will not increase interruptions risk
Key Benefits
- Control the activities of third party that can impact our assets
- Maintain supplies whilst carrying out operational & maintenance tasks
- Operate & maintain our assets without increasing interruptions risk
- Predict and prevent pressure transients that occur on our network
Systems (e.g. group of assets) designed to accommodate the full range of demand scenarios & outages
Key Benefits
- We have systems that can deal with the full range of demand scenarios
We can confidently identify assets that pose an increasing interruption risk to initiate a timely response
Key Benefits
- Improved knowledge of how critical assets deteriorate
- Improved knowledge of why critical assets fails
- Monitor critical assets reliably and economically
- Understand condition of critical assets (now and into the future)
- Understand consequence of the failure of critical assets
We can confidently predict the onset of asset failure to allow delivery of short-term preventative mitigation
Key Benefits
- Ability to promote proactive measures to maintain supplies
- Interpret real-time data and promote preventative mitigation
- Receiving real-time data from assets warning of failure
All water supplies are restored quickly after asset failure
Key Benefits
- Provide alternative supplies, if necessary
- Repair assets quickly after failure (e.g. internally using robotic equipment
- Restore supplies before repair (e.g. smart valve, integrated grid etc)
- Understand connectivity of customers to assets (i.e. which valves to operate)
All new assets are problem free when installed, and remain so throughout its economic life
Key Benefits
- All new materials have been suitably tested by a third party
- Assets manufactured & designed for inspection, operation & mitigation
- Better tools and techniques, QA and staff training to prevent fail
- Improved specifications for new networks
- We design our assets for zero interruptions (e.g joint free networks)
Outcome coming soon
Key Benefits
 

Research Impact - Case Studies