Round the UK in 8 days...a snapshot of some giant leaps in the water industry

In the last eight days (its the 13th June now) I've managed to travel over 1,200 miles and seemed to have been living on the conference circuit both online via webinars and in person moving from London to Edinburgh and to Birmingham and back to London. It has been an exhausting few days but some of what has happened in those eight days has spurred me to pen this article.

It all started arriving at London Standsted in the early hours of the morning after a long weekend of celebrating my little daughter's birthday. Arriving home in the early hours of the morning. A few hours of sleep, getting my daughter off to nursery and then back home to set up a "studio" in my front room. The reason - an international webinar for the IWA, the first in their series of Digital Transformation webinars, the host for the webinar a trully inspirational leader of the Water Industry, Professor Dragan Savic. It represented the start of what will promise to be something that will change the way the industry operates moving forward. The "home studio" was something a little bit heath robinson but when you see the end result in film you wouldn't really know.

The webinar itself, apart from the technical problems that you always get on these sort of things was a roaring success and the drivers for Digital Transformation in the water industry was discussed. My main takeaways is that it isn't only a "developed world approach and a conversation that I was to have later on in the week with the WSUP showed that the Digital Transformation of the Water Industry is something we need to look at globally. Is it really accessible to everyone. The conversations that I've had in the past eight days seem to suggest it is with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have well-structured DMAs and wide mobile phone coverage that can form the backbone of telemetry systems. It was certainly thought-provoking and dispelled any pre-conceptions that I may have.

I've embedded the webinar itself to enable you all to watch although be warned it is just short of an hour long

After the IWA Webinar on the drivers for transformation for the digitalisation of the water industry a quick hop in the car down to London saw the launch of the "Brave Blue World" trailer at the Bluetech Forum launched at the wonderful surroundings of Kew Gardens. The Brave Blue World project is a not-for-profit initiative focused on providing a platform for scientific educational storytelling and public engagement. The foundation was created with a view to inspire a shift in thinking and solving water challenges globally.

Probably one of the most inspiring things about the trailer is when Matt Damon who was interviewed out in Davos for the project, talks about how lucky we all are in the current water industry to be faced with the challenge of resolving the problems. The Bluetech Forum was of course so much more and it was the first time I visited it this year. It was certainly a revelation to me insofar as the openenss about the problems that not only do the UK utilities face but global utillities or even industrial water users.

Onwards to the next event and this time up to Edinburgh and the Leading Edge Technology conference.

The Leading Edge Technology conference is one of the International Water Associations flagship conferences and was fascinating this year. Unfortunately I was only able to attend the day of the plenary discussions rather than the whole week of the conference but even the one day was something that was trully fascinating. Apart from a wide variety of talk one of the highlights for me personally was seeing both Mark Van Loosdrecht talking about how to create value from the extracellular polymeric susbstances that can be extracted from the Nereda process and also seeing a presentation by Bruce Rittman he also discussed the day that they spent in Sweden picking up their joint Stockholm Water Prize.

The highlight for me though was the launch of the joint International Water Association/Xylem white paper on Digital Transformation. The report examines how digitalisation is transforming the water sector and introduces the Digital Water Adoption Curve, a new tool to help utilities assess their digital maturity and map their digital future.

The headline of the report is thatWater and wastewater utilities must embrace digital solutions. There is really no alternative.

“Digital water is already here” is the clear message after interviewing utility executives and leading experts from around the globe. From big data solutions to advanced management of the distribution network to digital customer engagement programs, nearly all utilities we talked to have begun the digital transformation journey. While the transformation is not always easy, with aging infrastructure, inadequate investment, changing climate and demographics, digital water is now seen not as an ‘option’ but as an ‘imperative'

How Digital Water is adopted was the focus of the panel session after the launch of the Digital Water report and I had great pleasure having a lively discussion over how we can get the whole concept of the Digital Water Utility adopted within the water industry.

The recording of the panel session is imbedded below but warning it is just under an hour long

It was a pleasure to see how companies like Scottish Water, who were one of the primary sponsors, and how they are actively adapting to a Digital Approach and its certainly exciting times. Unfortunatley prior engagements meant I could stay at LET for only a day and so a quick flight back down South a few hours nap to recover and onto the next engagment the next day.

A few hours in the car the next day took me to Chateau Impney near Droitwich just south of Birmingham to catchup with my fellow flow specialists within the water industry with a whole day talking about laser-based non-contact area velocity flow measurement. It is an area that is going to be very pertinent in the UK moving forwards as there is going to be a huge focus on how we manage flow to full treatment flows.

The day certainly had some great discussions with the obvious need that the industry faces in the UK around the management of wastewater. It very much included discussions around temporal hydro-dynamics as well as installation methodolgy and even primary and secondary verification using record players. It was a fascinating day that included all sorts of hints around laser focusing, doppler shifts and all of the back-end of a laser-based non-contact area velocity flow monitoring and ensuring that it is right. In reality what can be seen moving forward is that there is a limited technological choices for monitoring flow on the wastewater treatment works from a practical point of view. Where technologies are used they have their limitation and the application of these technologies, where it isn't already known, needs to be understood. What is clear at the moment is that more research is needed.

On the last day of this whistlestop tour around the UK the destination was the British Standards Instiute down in London with discussions had with our European colleagues where we are collectively coming together to look at the work of CEN-TC165 WG40 or in plain English the people who are looking at the standards surrounding wastewater treatment. For anyone who knows me well they know that I like to get down into the very technical details of things. My task look at Section 12 on Instrumentation, Control and Automation.... It is an interesting thing looking at standards and a very particular version of English has to be used using "shall" and "should" in the right place. There are some who are against the use of standards saying they cost more money but in reality as move to a world where data is going to become vitally important we are going to need the consistency that standards bring and so the work that is being done at both BSI and CEN level is absolutely vital to the delivery of (pick your term) Smart Water, Water 4.0, or the Digital Transformation of the Water Industry.

There are sometimes in the water industry where things seem to go what is known as "glacially slow" but sometimes, just sometimes it can move very very quickly. It does depend in which circles that you work in. There is alot of great work that is done in the water industry by alot of very dedicated people and it is a pleasure to be one of those people. Of course in the following weeks there are lots more events to look forward to and alot more discussions to be had. I'm particualarly looking forward to the Global Leakage Summit as well as the Future of Utillities - Innovation in Networks Conference where hopefully we can make progress on just some of the issues that the water industry faces. What is clear though is that we are certainly in challenging and exciting times where things are starting to happen...especially with the Digital Transformation of the Water Industry.

About the Author

Oliver Grievson is the Techincal Lead for the Water Industry at Z-Tech Control Systems and is an advocate for the Digital Transformation of the Water Industry using, amongst other methods, practical operational methodologies. He is also the Executive Director of Water Industry Process Automation & Control as well as being the Vice-Chairman of the Sensors for Water Interest Group (SWIG). He is a member of both the International Water Association's Digital Transformation Programme and the Institute of Measurement and Controls programme in this area too.

On top of all of this he is currently writing a Manual of Wastewater Flow Measurement that is due to be published by the International Water Association in the coming months as well as supporting the work of CEN TC165-WG40 by leading in the authorship of Part 12 which concentrates on Instrumentation, Automation & Control