A challenge issued to Wessex Water’s supply chain and beyond via its Marketplace to use its EDM (event duration monitor) data for sewers more effectively has been narrowed down to three companies.

Wessex Water launched its Marketplace in 2019 as a first-of-its-kind model for the water industry to increase collaboration with companies both in and out of its usual supply chain.

The southwest-based water company hopes to improve its use of the data to respond better to periods of heavy rainfall, minimise unnecessary alarms and receive predictive alerts for when sewer blockages are building, rather than when they become a problem.+

Out of 30 companies who expressed an interest in the challenge and 16 who submitted proposals, Wessex Water is moving forward with trials for three finalists:

• Meniscus, which has a machine learning tool that can identify windows of operation during rainfall events where combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges are permitted and analyse levels outside of rainfall periods to detect any abnormal behaviour on the sewer network.
• StormHarvester, which has offered a product that can mute alarms in periods of rainfall when CSO discharges are permitted and visually flag when CSOs are operating outside of normal parameters during dry weather.
• Detectronic, which has partnered with Royal Haskoning DHV to combine machine learning with network expertise into a blended solution to minimise alarms and enable Wessex Water to be one step ahead of potential pollution events.

The trials will run for the next three months and will involve Wessex Water feeding the three companies near real-time EDM data to see if they can correctly mute alarms and identify blockages, some of which will be simulated in a controlled environment.

Strategic Technology Planning Manager Jody Knight hopes to see a multitude of benefits from this data driven approach. These include reductions in blockages and CSO discharges to alleviate impact on the environment and lower volumes of alarms during rainfall periods, which will allow staff to work more efficiently and improve their reporting efficiency.

Jody Knight explained:

“The Marketplace approach has challenged the normal procurement channels for these emerging technical and data-related problems we encounter with our sewer network,”

“We have managed to communicate the problem to a wider supplier base and received proposals from companies that we may not have normally reached.

“The number of potentially viable and different solutions proposed by the companies in this challenge is encouraging to see as we move toward becoming a more data-centric business and we are grateful for all who have taken part in this challenge.”