Remotely operated valves trial

Yorkshire Water is conducting a trial of the new technology to see if it can help reduce the number bursts and the amount of time it takes to isolate a pipe if it does burst.

The water company is working in partnership with R2M Limited to trial 34 remote battery powered actuators. The new additions will mean that the flow of water can be managed centrally, from the company’s control room, and has the potential to save significant time in the event of a burst or water quality event – meaning less interruptions for customers.

As well as the time saving benefits, cost savings are estimated at around £20,000 per asset, per annum, due to the reduced installation cost and reduced manual handling time.

Sarah Gledhill, innovation project manager at Yorkshire Water, said: “Using the remote battery powered actuators has already seen us saving time, money and has allowed us to redeploy colleagues that would usually operate the valves manually. Our customers may not always be aware of ‘behind the scenes’ updates like this one, but they will see the benefit through a reduced number of bursts and much quicker resolutions if something does go wrong on the network.”

Jim Tattersfield, R2M’s business development manager north, said: "The actuators offer many benefits to Yorkshire Water from protecting the health and safety of their staff to hugely increased network resilience and risk mitigation. It is amazing to see how Yorkshire Water is embracing this cutting edge technology and are willing to invest in their networks and the well-being of their workforce.”

For more information on Yorkshire Water’s innovation schemes, visit https://www.yorkshirewater.com/about-us/innovation/