Using smart technology to unblock our sewers

I work on innovative projects and improvements to keep our sewers free of blockages - that’s just part of my role as Network Resilience Delivery Manager. The project to digitalise our wastewater network is important and it takes a whole team of us to put it in place. It’s not just about a smarter and better way of working, it’s part of how we’re doing the right thing to have less impact on our customers and reduce pollution.

The problem with blockages is that they can cause flooding in customers’ homes or they may harm the environment when they stop the wastewater flowing as it should. A large proportion of sewer blockages are formed by unflushable items, such as wipes or fat, oil or grease (FOG) sticking together when they’re put down wastepipes instead of being binned. We often only get to hear about a blockage when it’s big enough to cause an issue, so I think the great thing about this project is that we can detect signs of blockages before they even start to be a problem.

We’re deploying 22,000 sewer sensors across our wastewater network. We place the sensors in manholes, and strategically target particular areas. Each sensor is smaller than a baked bean tin, but its ability to measure the water level in the sewage pipe using radar, is all that’s needed to start detecting a blockage. The sensors send data back to a powerful machine learning and analytics tool. For me, this clever IT tool is the most impressive part of the project, as it learns what the wastewater levels should be in the sewers to work out where there could be blockages. Our dedicated team of analysts then interpret the results before mobilising our sewer crews to clean the sewers and clear the blockages. It’s a more of a pro-active way of working, making it easier to plan ahead, as well as being more efficient and cost-effective.

This project will benefit the community by avoiding customer distress from blockages and increasing our ability to protect the environment. It shows how we’re always improving to deliver our targets for sewer flooding and pollution incidents faster and better. I’m so proud of the expertise and responsiveness of the team – although it’s a challenging project, we’ve come together across several areas of the business and we really are succeeding together.

Daniel

Network Resilience Delivery Manager