Paul Hartley, chief commercial officer at Ovarro, explains why water companies getting on the front foot with leakage targets and technology investment now will be in a strong position going into AMP8.

Paul Hartley: The year 2023/24 was challenging for UK water companies, which have been operating under increasingly intense customer, regulatory and media scrutiny. They should, however, take pride in their draft price reviews for 2025-2030 (PR24) and draft water resource management plans (WRMPs), which demonstrate bold technological ambitions to enable them to rise to future challenges.

As a framework supplier for leakage solutions to several UK water companies, Ovarro has studied the draft price reviews to see how the market for the 2025-2030 asset management plan (AMP8) period is developing, ahead of Ofwat’s draft determinations, expected this May or June. Given the skills and recruitment challenges in the sector, water companies are encouraged to engage at the earliest opportunity with technology providers, so the right solutions can be implemented for AMP8 without delay.

Leakage is measured on a three-year cycle, so any increase in the final year of AMP7 will impact AMP8 year-one targets. Getting on the front foot now will put companies in a far stronger position to achieve future leakage commitments.

Companies are striving for greater efficiency – delivering better results for the same outlay or less – and there is a direct correlation between technology investment and reduced labour hours.

As such, suppliers are focused on the development of managed digital solutions that make processes faster and more efficient. In the field of leakage, Ovarro will soon launch EnigmaREACH, a lift-and-shift correlating hub that offers mass logger deployment and expanded network coverage, with fewer loggers.

The new solution EnigmaREACH, due to launch globally in 2024, combines up to 64 loggers, a tablet, a single app for logger deployment, retrieval and follow-up, and access to Ovarro’s Atrium LeakInsight analytics platform.

As-a-service models offer another route to greater efficiency and continue to gain momentum in water. The systems are subscription-based, with infrastructure that is entirely managed by an external supplier.

Launched in January 2023, Ovarro’s LeakNavigator was the UK’s first fully-managed leak-locating model. The product takes complete ownership of the logger deployment planning and day-to-day data analysis, to accurately identify points of interest (PoI) on behalf of water companies.

In the year since it was launched, LeakNavigator trials are delivering positive outcomes for a number of water companies. One example is a partnership with Thames Water, which implemented LeakNavigator in a project which saw installation of 3,450 sensors across 106 district metered areas.

Ovarro is extending LeakNavigator services to European customers outside the UK. Southern Europe is presenting a huge opportunity after the European Commission granted significant funds to areas facing water scarcity – including Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

This allocation has a strong focus on leakage reduction, as well as network optimisation through improved telemetry. While Ovarro has operated in these regions for many years, the company is now actively looking for new partners, and LeakNavigator will be at the centre of our offerings.