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

Big question

Go Back To All Big Questions

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

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

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.

RESEARCH Outcomes

All work carried out the assets will not increase interruptions risk

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

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

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

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

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

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

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

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

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

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

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

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

View key benefits and filter projects by this outcome

key benefits

Addressing Big Questions achieves Outcomes, which in turn generates Benefits to the water industry.

See All Projects

Projects

Extending SAGIS to include catchment statistics analysis and reporting in preparation for PR24.

Project Status - Project Commenced

What is the emerging legislation or other threat that lies behind the proposal?

DEFRA and the regulators are reviewing the way in which sector share of pollution is derived. The review is to complete in the Autumn. The sector share allocation approach (whether revised or as for PR19) needs to be embedded in SAGIS for catchment work.

Regulators, encouraged by Government (DEFRA in England) are increasingly managing the water environment at catchment scale. In England and Wales catchments mean operational catchments. These have been identified by the regulators and are reasonably homogenous, thereby making it easier to identify the non-water industry sector impacts. (There are over 300 such catchments in England).

The SAGIS-SIMCAT system was first used in PR14 and more extensively in PR19, where several billion pounds of investment were based on calculations provided by it. Indirect benefits include a consistent approach across the water Industry for environmental planning and closer, cooperative working with the regulators.

The purpose of this proposal is to develop the facilities for catchment scale calculations, analysis and reporting, in preparation for PR24.

Why is the Industry concerned about this issue?

Water Industry environmental obligations for PR24 will be contingent on sector share allocation, at catchment scale.

The absence of the means to compute this Water Industry share could result on undue obligations and hence costs being placed on the Industry.

This will support the development of PR24 measures, and allow us to better explore catchment solution options.

The specific problem is:

To have catchment scale information in a reliable and accessible form to support the PR24 process.

We note that:

SAGIS-SIMCAT already provides some of the tools needed for catchment scale work. These include the Decision Support Tool and the Environment Agency optimiser.

The missing parts, to be provided by this project, are:

Specification of operational catchments within SAGIS and SIMCAT
Summary statistics for catchments
Sector share of EQS

Summary statistics are the usual mean, standard deviation and percentile concentrations. These are to be provided on a sector by sector basis, thereby providing a clear picture of each sector’s contributions. These statistics will also allow better inter-catchment comparisons. Sector share is derived from these summary statistics. (The details of the sector share derivation will need to be consistent with PR24 guidance, following the DEFRA review.)

PFAS and wastewater - prevalence, reduction options and costs.

Project Status - Project Completed

Read Report

The release of the film 'Dark Waters' has only served to highlight a wider concern than the known issue of widespread non-compliance with the EQS for PFOS. There is emerging concern regarding the wider family of PFAS and their toxicity both to humans and in the environment. The EA is currently taking a pragmatic view and effectively relaxing the EQS for PFOS in the light of monitoring data (aqueous and biota) but this leaves unanswered issues of what to regulate and why - and then how the industry should respond, and if compliance is cost-effective.

Scoping Study - Understanding Asset Risk (BQ8).

Project Status - Project Completed

Read Report

BQ03-A01-Trunk Mains Preventative Maintenance to Reduce Major Incident Risk.

Project Status - Project Completed

Read Report

Projects coming soon.

BQ03- C08- Identifying the root causes of failures that lead to interruptions.

Project Status - Project Commenced

In order to effectively prioritise BQ3 Route Map research activities we need a clear understanding of the major root causes of failure leading to interruptions to supply (ITS) across the industry. There is a need to assess if there are pipeline characteristics, environmental location and conditions, or third-party impacts that are main or high contributors to ITS events across the industry. There is also currently a lack of consistent methods across the industry regarding root cause failure analysis (RCFA). Lack of awareness of this can trigger premature or incorrect capital investment where very expensive mains replacement may occur prior to all operational or maintenance mitigation being exhausted.

At present, there is no readily available national data on the relative property minutes contributions of ITS events on large diameter mains as opposed to smaller diameter mains or between material types. This relatively basic asset information alone could significantly inform or reaffirm industry and BQ3 route map research priorities moving forwards in terms of relative focus on trunk mains or distribution mains and certain material types etc.

By gathering and interpreting ITS root cause data and information across the industry, the BQ3 research programme can then be further prioritised to focus on those assets that have the greater risk of causing ITS events. This project will also provide an agreed industry data protocol for future data collection in this area and enhance the effective specification of appropriate datasets for the development of the new National Failures Database (NFD), running as a parallel project.

By focussing BQ3 research projects on those assets that are more likely to cause ITS events, we will ultimately reduce those events and move towards “Achieving zero interruptions to supply by 2050”. This will not only provide a better service to our customers but encourage more efficient ways of working within water companies in this area, improve practice and ODI impact and, ultimately, reduce major incident risk.

BQ03-D01-Accelerating Innovation and Development of Effective Early Warning and Event Management tools.

Project Status - Project Completed

Read Report

BQ03- E02 - Customer communication and managing customer use during supply interruption events.

Project Status - Project Completed

Category - Asset Management

Read Report

Projects coming soon.

Big question

Go Back To All Big Questions