South Staff Water (SSW) has recently submitted its 2020-2025 business plan as required by UK’s Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat). In the runup to the submission OFWAT had mandated all UK water companies a target of bringing down leakage by at least 15% up to 2025.
SSW has taken on a greater challenge to achieve 25% reduction. To help obtain this ambitious target, SSW has recently announced that it has selected to implement Curapipe’s TALR solution.
In its plan, South Staff Water described TALR as being a “new, innovative and radically different leakage technology on the UK market”. The water utility goes on to explain that TALR is approved for use in the England and Wales water sector by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
TALR was chosen as part of the water utility’s leakage management since it “can deliver repairs that are resistant to future changes that can be caused by pipe flex, leading to future failures. This is because the repair becomes structurally integrated into the pipe. The length of the pig train used and the speed at which it moves ensures that leaks in the pipe are fixed first time. TALR is most effective for repairing numerous small, background leaks that would not necessarily be cost effective to locate and repair. In addition, it can be used on all materials associated with the construction of a water distribution network”.
South Staff Water will be the first company in the sector to use TALR commercially. More are expected to follow. The water utility is currently evaluating the ability to use TALR to treat large areas of its network. TALR will complement the traditional ‘find and fix’ approach to repairing leaks and as such improve efficiency and performance by removing the need to dig up roads, which can cause disruption and inconvenience for customers. In short, TALR is a low-cost, non-invasive and long-term approach for reducing leakage.
About South Water
South Staffs Water supplies high quality drinking water to approximately 1.3m people and approximately 35,000 commercial customers over 1,500 square km in the West Midlands, South Staffordshire, South Derbyshire, North Warwickshire and North Worcestershire areas.
About Cambridge Water (part of the group)
Cambridge Water supplies high-quality drinking water to approximately 300,000 customers, from Cambridge, extending to Ramsey in the north, Gamlingay in the west, Balsham in the east and Melbourn in the south.
About Ofwat
Established in 1989, the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) is the body responsible for economic regulation of the privatized water and sewerage industry in England and Wales. Ofwat is primarily responsible for setting limits on the prices charged for water and sewerage services, taking into account proposed capital investment schemes (such as building new wastewater treatment works) and expected operational efficiency gains. Ofwat requires that the 2020-2025 business plans of the water utilities outline what they propose to invest, what they propose to charge customers, how they will support vulnerable customers and how they will ensure the long-term resilience of their infrastructure and operations. Failure to meet the leakage reduction requirements results penalties.
About Curapipe
Established in 2007, Curapipe System Ltd. is a pioneering provider of an innovative breakthrough leak curing solution (TALR - Trenchless Automated Leakage Repair) for buried potable water pipes. Curapipe addresses the need of urban water utilities by repairing hidden leaks in their mains and service connections that normally remain undetected. The TALR solution is the result of many years of development by a team of highly skilled and experienced PhD technologists in the fields of hydraulics, materials and pipelining. Curapipe’s TALR is deployed at several water utilities for large-scale commercial rollout at various global locations.
Curapipe media contact:
Ms. Debra De-Jong
E-mail: Debra@curapipe.com