2010-01-18 - ABB will be jointly presenting at the forthcoming Global Water Leakage Summit (London, 27-28th January 2010) on its involvement in Project Neptune, an innovative three-year initiative aimed at gathering and utilising real time information on water leakage.
Tim Door, UK Water Industry Manager for ABB and Ridwan Patel of Yorkshire Water Services will explain the Project Neptune concept, which uses software developed by leading UK universities to analyse and detect leakage and bursts in water supply pipelines.
Launched in April 2007, Project Neptune is a strategic partnership between ABB, Yorkshire Water, United Utilities, the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and seven UK universities.
The aim of the project is to show how real-time data can be utilised to help water utilities to balance the issues of planning, water leakage, pressure management and energy management. It covers three key areas, namely: pressure and energy management, information management and decision support tools.
“Despite considerable countrywide investment and modernisation, leakage still continues to lose the UK’s water utilities around 3,600 megalitres of water estimated every day,” says Tim Door. “For every litre of water lost in a water network, another litre of water has to be treated and pumped through the distribution network to compensate, increasing the cost of production and reducing the available water supply.”
The project aims to develop tools, methods and real-time applications which will enable utilities to improve the deployment of front-line instrumentation and improve planning, through access to up-to-minute operational data on their distribution networks. By coupling this improved data with the latest automation technology, utility companies will be able to improve the performance of both their pro-active and reactive operation and maintenance processes.
“Our aim is to give water operators the data they need to make intelligent decisions on eliminating leaks wherever possible,” says Door. “The improvements this should bring will help them to better address the ever rising cost of delivering product to its end users in a safe, high quality, efficient and economic manner.”
ABB’s involvement in the project stems from its proven experience in water and waste water treatment processes worldwide. The company’s products encompass everything from instrumentation, power components, motor and drive through to complete control systems. For more information, visit www.abb.com/water
As well as the Project Neptune presentation, Tim Door will also be part of a panel discussion entitled Applying lateral thinking to leakage management. Taking place at 17:15 on 28th January, the discussion will examine whether other leakage management tactics used by other industries could be adopted by UK water operators.
Now in its fourth year, the Global Water Leakage Summit is dedicated to the discussion and presentation of new technologies for managing leakage. For more information, including how to register, visit http://www.global-leakage-summit-2010.com.