Wastewater Monitoring Pilot for Welsh Water

Detectronic has been appointed by Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water to deliver a sewer networking monitoring pilot with a focus on preventing flooding and reducing pollution events across its network.

For the last 12 months, Welsh Water has been exploring ways of further improving the performance of its wastewater network in North Wales and to identify blockages sooner. After reviewing the region, the company identified the area around the village of Llay near Wrexham as the ideal catchment location for the six-month monitoring pilot.

Explains Jen Gorniak, business development manager at Detectronic: “Welsh Water has taken a hands-on, proactive approach to improving the performance of its network to further prevent flooding and pollution events. As such, we were invited to assess how our monitoring systems could be integrated into Welsh Water and its strategy to deliver its Smart Network Wastewater Network Management.

“We already work in partnership with water companies to successfully avert flooding and reduce pollution events, so we will be applying our knowledge and experience to do the same for Welsh Water. It’s all about working together predicting potential issues and improving operational network performance.”

Continues Gorniak: “We will be utilising and analysing existing data from the sewerage network as well as installing additional monitors and gauges. Our data centre team will scrutinise data from the monitors and provide early warning and predictive reporting of any issues arising in the catchment.

“As part of the pilot, Welsh Water will be evaluating our DetecdataPro package. This package enables the Welsh Water team to login remotely, 24 hours a day and check the data. It’s instant and immediate and will alert the team to any problems so they can be resolved quickly and efficiently.”

Concludes Andrew Wild, Welsh Water’s North Wales Sewerage Manager: “We want to assess the suitability, benefits and appropriateness of Detectronic’s systems and analysis. It’s our aim to be smarter at network management and prevent any future incidences of flooding and further reduce the number of pollution incidents across our entire network.”