Led by: Severn Trent Water
Partners: South West Water, Southern Water, Thames Water, Hafren Dyfrdwy Water, Northumbrian Water, Microsoft, Rockwell, British Telecom, Blackburn-Starling, 8power, National Cyber Security Centre, Exeter University
A cross-sector coalition – with partners including Microsoft, BT, the National Cyber Security Centre and the University of Exeter – to pilot the use of artificial intelligence that monitors a waste catchment area in real time to minimise the risk of flooding and sewage pollution. With the water industry accounting for 35% of river pollution, the project has received around £2 million to develop new and integrated approaches for spill prevention.
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Carried out collaboratively between Severn Trent and its delivery partners, the AIoT project has made great advancements for the sector regarding Real-time Control (RTC) design for wastewater catchment management.
Severn Trent’s AI integrates three advanced data science models to simulate the Alfreton wastewater network and generate coordinated pumping station control schedules for pre-, during, and post-storm conditions. The project has positively demonstrated through simulation the potential for AI-based pump schedule optimisation to reduce spills by over 20%.
Southwest Water’s AIOT trial preparation continues to progress. They are in process of upgrading their SPS asset, OT, flow monitoring and associated software which will allow for trial readiness in late spring/early summer.
Southern Water’s dry weather flow and storm calibrations using SLM data have been completed, and the results are being compiled in a final report due to be disseminated to the project partners at the end of January.
Thames Water is progressing well on defining the requirement for integrating the AI model with existing Telemetry and Regional SCADA systems, and are testing the concept of using the existing telemetry outstations for site data exchange and execution of AI model outputs.
The project as a whole has enabled the development of adaptable hardware design options for RTC, soon to be shared in our AIoT sector blueprint document – the template development of which, and led by University of Exeter, has accelerated since October 2024 and is now in the process of collaborative authorship.
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For more information on Artificial Intelligence of Things Enabling Autonomous Waste Catchments, take a look at the following resources:
