Delivering on a key part of its proactive sustainability strategy, leading capital infrastructure and engineering services company, Avove, has announced a first-of-its-kind partnership agreement with iNPIPE PRODUCTS (iNPIPE), a pipeline pigging specialist, to deliver turnkey solutions for cleaning large-scale water pipelines and protecting water companies’ assets.
This innovative partnership brings combined expertise for the cleaning, inspection and maintenance of pipelines using ground-breaking smart pigging technology and delivering substantial sustainability and environmental benefits compared to the traditional methods of cleaning. Smart pig technology delivers an efficient and effective cleaning method as well as reductions in CO2, time, cost, excavations, haul roads required, and water used.
Avove and iNPIPE’s innovative and bespoke cleaning tools are designed and manufactured to pipeline cleaning specifications and standards. The partnership’s unique air pig technology is a safe and proven pipeline cleaning method that can be designed and manufactured to fit pipeline diameters of up to 3000mm in diameter and travel more than 6km through a pipeline at a time.
The partnership’s smart pigging solution incorporates air pigging and video technology and has been successfully applied to the cleaning of large water mains across UK projects – a global first for using smart pigging at this size and scale in the water industry. The air pigs have been designed to include full tracking, together with speed control features for improved visual inspection using integrated cameras and lighting to validate pipeline cleanliness.
Avove’s Director of Operations, Patrick Rafferty, said:
“We are incredibly proud to partner with iNPIPE and be part of this groundbreaking design and delivery of smart air pigging, bringing water quality compliance through the inspection, cleaning and maintenance of pipelines. We have already started to see the real-life benefits of using smart pig technology; for example, we have cleaned a 16km 1m bitumen-steel pipeline in Cheshire which saved 15 million litres of water, reduced carbon output by 118 tonnes and took more than 1,100 tanker movements off the road compared to traditional methods of cleaning.
“Smart air pig technology will help us to plan, design, construct and protect our clients’ assets for the future, whilst delivering water quality first and ensuring we remain on track to drive lower carbon solutions in our plan to achieve Net Zero carbon targets.
“Our team of expert designers have collaborated with iNPIPE’s team to bring the design and manufacture of smart air pig technology to a size and scale that has never been seen in the water industry before. Using the same innovation, we are excited to look into the future and securely share data from inspecting and maintaining water pipelines, which is vital to our clients and the industry.”
iNPIPE PRODUCTS’ Managing Director, Simon Bell, said:
“We are pleased to partner with Avove to bring proven technology into the UK water industry which will innovate, reduce cost and minimise project timescales and hugely reduce waste. Coincidentally iNPIPE are celebrating 40 years of design, manufacture and the provision of complete turnkey solutions for our customers in the energy sector all around the world. These services are delivered by our Solutions department and focus on faster, effective pipe cleaning together with reliable visual inspection over long distances as they are free-swimming tools. It is particularly gratifying that we managed to save 15 million litres of water on this first project as water is a scarce commodity.
“Living in a small village myself, I am also pleased that our innovative methodology reduced the need for lots of tanker trips by 1,100 which is a huge amount over a small locality. I am sure that local residents’ quality of life was enhanced by this reduction in heavy road traffic”.
Avove’s Account Director, James Lawlor, said:
“Having recently been successful in becoming one of NWG’s seven Design and Construct partners and subsequently a LWE enterprise member for AMP8, Avove will be proactively supporting NWG to achieve their commitments to the five-point plan through development of our own stretch decarbonisation and net zero targets and implementing this within our design, build and commissioning process.
“To support NWG and its commitment to achieve Net Zero by 2050, NWG has committed in its Environment Strategy to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions from new assets by 2025. Through our experience and the use of new concepts we will improve our carbon performance which will include innovative low carbon materials and developing plans to phase out the use of fossil fuels in our vehicles and on our construction sites.”
The partnership brings together expertise and sustainable smart pig technology to the forefront of the water industry, helping to maintain operational efficiency, longevity and the smooth operation of pipelines. The technology also delivers the provision of better water quality for consumers together with supporting a greener future by offering a significant reduction in time, water, cost and carbon footprint.
