Southern Water taps fiber network to sniff out leaky pipes

Another utility sees the light in putting existing telecoms infrastructure to work

UK utility provider Southern Water is turning fiber-optic telecoms cables into underground sensors in an effort to find leaks in its water network.

The privatized biz is trialing tech from Lightsonic that uses Openreach's fiber network to detect leaking pipes. Openreach - BT's infrastructure arm - and Affinity Water, which supplies parts of southern England, tested the system in March.

As The Register reported at the time, the system analyzes tiny changes in light traveling through fiber-optic cables to detect vibrations caused by nearby underground leaks. Machine learning helps distinguish those signals from traffic, roadworks and other background noise, and estimates where the water is escaping.

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Lightsonic says the resulting location data allows engineers to investigate and repair leaks more quickly. It claims the tech is already preventing the loss of more than four million liters (about a million gallons) of water per day across 650 km (400 miles) of the UK's water network.

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Southern Water is adopting the technology after one of Britain's hottest and driest summers on record, with almost three-quarters of England officially under drought conditions. Southern England is among the country's most water-stressed regions.
The utility said Lightsonic's work with Affinity Water and Openreach influenced its decision to run the trial.

Southern Water hopes the trial will help it meet Ofwat's leakage-reduction targets for 2030 and strengthen its drought resilience by easing pressure on reservoirs and water abstraction.

The company provides water and wastewater services across parts of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, West Sussex, East Sussex, and Kent.

"We've reduced leakage across our network for three consecutive years and continue to invest in innovative techniques and technologies to find and fix leaks even more effectively," said Wayne Novelli, Southern Water's leakage and network strategy manager.

"We've been impressed by the leakage reduction metrics and proven success of Lightsonic's technology and are looking forward to working with the team to trial a new way of detecting and tackling them."

Southern Water's efforts to conserve clean water come against a less flattering record on wastewater. A court this week fined it £2.4 million ($3.1 million) over several pollution incidents in Kent. That followed a £7.1 million ($9.4 million) fine in July for illegal sewage discharges that forced beaches in Thanet to close. Both prosecutions were brought by the Environment Agency. ®