Essex & Suffolk Water cut leakage from 66.26Mld (megalitres per day) in 2017/18 to 64.17Mld in 2018/19, a reduction equivalent to more than 240 Olympic swimming pools per year, in a water-stressed area of the country.
Space satellites, drones and public support are helping us to reduce leakage from its water network to industry-leading levels.
We have now set a new reduced target to take its battle against leakage even further, having utilised a wide range of methods to achieve its latest figures.
The company has also utilised drone technology and launched a Leakage Portal that allows members of the public to report leaks they spot and keep track of our work to fix the problem.
Among the tools used to achieve the latest results are space satellites – using the same technology that helps search for water on other planets to find leaks here on Earth.
The company’s Innovation Festivals have also seen data experts from a wide range of companies searching through tens of gigabits of information from a wide range of sources to look for new ways to tackle leakage. Outcomes have included an innovative method of identifying hot spots, which can then be used to prioritise target areas where the biggest impact upon leakage can be made. This is now being used in both our supply areas.
We have set ourselves a target of reducing leakage from our water network by 17.5% by 2025. These latest figures show we have already made significant strides towards achieving this, by looking at any and all possible methods – no matter how out of this world they may be – and putting more resources into hunting down and repairing leaks. In our Essex & Suffolk Water area we are now industry-leader, having started at a very challenging position in 2017/18.