Anglian Water has announced a new framework with Asystom, Flowserve, Samotics, SEEPEX and SKF to install condition-based monitoring sensors on its pumping assets.
Anglian Water’s CBM programme will use temperature, vibration, and electronic signature analysis (ESA) sensors to monitor the condition of rotating and pumping assets and optimise asset performance. This will allow the company to move towards a more proactive, condition-based approach to maintenance – constantly monitoring the health, performance and efficiency of its assets to carry out pre-emptive work when needed to avoid costly repairs and extend asset life.
Condition-based monitoring (CBM) seeks to better predict and manage vulnerabilities in water and wastewater systems, such as leakage or blockages, through increased automation. While CBM has traditionally been used by petrochemical and pharmaceutical organisations, the water company is deploying it in this new way to transform how it understands and maintains its assets.
Charlotte Stewart, Smart Water System Engineer for Anglian Water, said:
“Delivering a reliable service for our customers and protecting our environment from leakage and pollution are the key tenets of what we do at Anglian Water. Condition-based monitoring will allow us to monitor the health of our pumping assets – on both the clean and wastewater networks – much more closely than ever before, meaning we can act quickly to prevent disruption for customers and damage to the environment.
“We are really pleased to be working with Asystom, Flowserve, Samotics, SEEPEX and SKF on this new framework. Each company provides distinctly unique monitoring solutions to suit a wide range of Anglian Water assets, meaning we have a more comprehensive view of our asset health than ever before – allowing us to drive down failures and improve our service to customers, all while reducing the costs associated with reactive maintenance.”
Anglian Water is moving towards building a Smart Water Network, aligned with the SWAN model. Condition based monitoring forms an integral part of a Smart Water Network, providing insight and opportunities for early intervention and data driven decision making. It will allow Anglian Water to monitor and maintain assets based on their condition, to improve their efficiency, lifespan, and reliability. CBM will help to enable a more resilient service for the company’s more than 6 million customers across the East of England.
In the future, CBM will be core to Anglian Water’s maintenance strategy, using advanced algorithms to be able to identify potential failure signatures. This will allow engineers to act far earlier than was ever previously possible. CBM provides the opportunity to drive down unplanned failures (alongside any associated health and safety risks) and their impacts on customers, while reducing costs associated with reactive maintenance.
André Naccache, Managing Director at Asystom said:
“We are proud to be part of the CBM Anglian Water solution. Anglian Water has been a great customer to work with and is committed to their project. The initial pilot test, from installations to set-up and training, was achieved remotely and in record time, demonstrating the simplicity of implementing our solution. Our acoustic and vibration-based multi-sensor beacons have proven to be accurate and quick to deploy. Additionally, the use of AsystomAdvisor, our AI platform, has provided useful insight into the causes of failure with automatic diagnostic capability, all at an affordable cost.”
Scott Rowe, CEO at Flowserve, said:
“We are extremely pleased and excited to be part of the team helping Anglian Water deliver cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable drinking water and wastewater solutions for its communities. We truly believe this partnership with Anglian Water is helping the world transition to more sustainable and environmentally secure water management methods. CBM is an essential part of this journey, and with our Red Raven monitoring technology, analytics, and end-to-end services, we can help accelerate that transition by providing a more transparent view of equipment performance, enabling more proactive maintenance practices.”
Jasper Hoogeweegen, CEO at Samotics, said:
“We have seen ESA delivering clear, tangible results across the water industry as adoption has grown. By unlocking the full spectrum of asset health and performance data, organizations implementing ESA are improving their operational resilience and energy efficiency in tandem. We’re very pleased to be continuing our two-year collaboration with Anglian Water on a greater scale to deliver more vital insights to support their business in optimizing asset base and reaching net zero targets.”
Ian Peverill, UK Business Unit Manager at SKF, said:
“SKF continues its mission to be a sustainability leader within the industrial environment of rotating equipment. This is achieved through expanding our clean technology business and offering solutions that reduce customers’ environmental impact and energy use, as well as aiding their transition towards a circular, carbon neutral business with sustainable rotation. We are proud to partner with Anglian Water in this 5-year Condition Based Monitoring contract, which will enable the future proofing of water resources. SKF’s wireless and advanced continuous monitoring technology will continue to provide Anglian Water with actionable insights that return value, by enabling predicted repairs, equipment optimisation and realising equipment life extension.”
This development comes as Anglian Water teams are also working to install more than 20,000 new pressure monitors on the company’s sewer network, providing another key element of the SWAN smart water network. These monitors will detect problems and troublesome blockages within sewer pipes, meaning issues can be found and fixed early, protecting the environment from pollution. The system uses weather forecasts and hundreds of sensors to detect any areas where the network is not operating at full capacity – which usually indicates a blockage is forming – and proactively clearing blockages before they cause pollution in the wider environment.
Alongside the CBM framework, Anglian Water will continue to support the technical development of vibration and temperature CBM provider 8power, a technology start-up which operates within the company’s region, in Cambridge. The water company has been working with 8power for more than five years. Anglian Water has now extended an existing agreement to continue monitoring 150 critical motors and pumps for three further years, while 8power mature their solution to meet the challenges faced by water utilities.
