East Midlands: Severn Trent launches new technology to detect water leaks

Keiron Maher, research and development manager for Severn Trent said: “We take leakage very seriously and we’re always trying hard to get levels as low as possible. We have teams out and about, around the clock, every day, finding and fixing leaks. We also encourage our customers to report leaks to us, as with a 46,000km network of water pipes that would stretch around the world, we can’t be everywhere at once. So we rely on our customers, who often spot leaks before we do.

“We’ve been very successful at driving leakage levels down over the last few years, but to help make further improvements we’ve been doing some research into developing technology to help us find leaks more efficiently. In this case we’ve worked with Echologics and Loughborough University to develop the LeakFinderST™. This is a fantastic piece of kit that significantly reduces the amount of time needed to accurately locate leaks, especially in plastic pipes. Finding leaks in plastic pipes has always been much more difficult than in other materials, but not any more. This is great news for us and our customers, as more and more of our pipes are plastic now, because we’re upgrading and replacing the old metal pipes. And this new technology will help us in our quest to drive down levels of leakage.”

Severn Trent Water and Echologics were recent recipients of the Most Innovative New Technology of the Year award and the overall Outstanding Innovation 2014 award at the Water Industry Achievement Awards. These were hosted by industry specialists WET News and Water and Wastewater Treatment. Echologics is a leading developer and provider of acoustic-based technologies for water loss management, leak detection, and pipe condition assessment.

If you spot a leak, report it to Severn Trent as soon as possible either at stwater.co.uk/reportaleak or on 0800 783 4444.