Ever thought of water quality as an asset? Why turning traditional models upside down will be a game changer.

Welcome to this short series on the future of Asset Management.

In our third and final blog, Amy Muir Consultant, Energy Transition and Utilities, and James Redhead, Senior Consultant Energy Transition & Utilities, explore why growing numbers of energy and utilities businesses are placing environmental protection goals at the heart of their decision making.

In the energy and utilities world, assets that require management have always been defined in traditional terms, starting with those countless items of physical infrastructure and equipment needed to build and operate huge networks of pipes, pumping stations, sewers and treatment works, and in the many forms of power generation and distribution.

Added to these more recently are the myriad IT and OT hardware, software, systems and devices that we use to operate our networks and deliver supplies and services to customers. In the last few years, technologies like AI and IoT have been added to the inventory too.

Today a potentially game changing philosophical shift is gaining momentum, reframing our view of what constitutes an asset, with the result that a new asset category is emerging – namely our shared natural resources.

By positioning the features of our natural landscape at the heart of our thinking and applying proven asset management principles to the way we relate to them, in combination with the deployment of breakthrough technologies, we have a mouthwatering opportunity to transform the way we protect and enhance our environment. 

Historically, our natural resources have been on the receiving end of our activities. And though our industry has made huge improvements in the way it respects and protects the environment, the landscape has remained at the margins of our thinking, at the end of countless processes, places where the goal was to manage our impacts at “acceptable” levels, set by regulators.

The philosophical shift that I refer to turns this traditional model on its head. Using a water industry example, in asset management terms, by defining a river as a system and the water quality within it as the asset, this positions water quality as the driver of all associated activities, a benchmark against which we plan and execute all operations to achieve our agreed water quality standard.

Uniting around a common goal

To use a sporting analogy, the leading teams in the Tour de France have one goal in mind, from the outset. That is to see their rider in the yellow jersey on the Champs Elysee. Every decision the team takes works backwards from that single vision, triggering coordinated activities to achieve the goal.

By setting a water quality standard that’s achievable and meets all regulatory and environmental protection criteria, just like the cycling team, everyone can unite around that goal, focusing on how each upstream activity contributes to success. And this “water quality as the asset” model can be applied throughout the energy and utilities sector, by using environmental targets as the catalyst for concerted action.

Positioning water quality as the asset will also, I believe, accelerate the deployment of the technologies that are producing transformational results. And that acceleration will fast track significant benefits for the environment as already stated, but also for the water and wastewater companies, consumers and society as a whole.

Rivers are cherished as iconic symbols of a healthy countryside, and as a result, subject to intense scrutiny by the public, media and pressure groups. The reputations of those companies that put the achievement of environmental standards at the heart of their operations are more likely to be enhanced. The rapid deployment of multiple digital technologies will improve performance and cut costs, reducing the capital investment burden, while also ensuring regulatory compliance and reducing the need for customers’ bills to rise.

Reducing monitoring costs by 75%

At Capgemini, we’re working with the sector to bring these exciting developments to reality, in particular to assist water companies to meet their statutory Continuous Water Quality Monitoring obligations. Addressing this issue alone will require the industry to spend around £10 billion on river water quality monitoring in the decade to 2035, and a further £50 – 60 billion in mitigating root causes of water industry driven pollution.

Already we can see a future where, in the water industry, the need for traditional physical assets will be reduced by 50%, producing a 75% reduction in through life costs.

These remarkable results will be achieved by using advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions, alongside a growing cluster of earth observation satellites and proven novel sensing technologies. In the monitoring arena alone, we believe we can reduce current typical costs by 75%. Global partnerships will enhance our access to diverse datasets to provide the insights required to make sound decisions.

Utilising a model-based solution with predictive analytics, water utilities will visualise real-time river catchment health and take informed, proactive steps to reduce the frequency of events and mitigate the impacts of those that cannot be prevented.

A modelled solution will provide scenario planning capability to assess macro changes to the river catchment, measuring for example the impact of urban and industrial development, agricultural land use, and the increasingly extreme effects of climate change.

To this end we’re working in partnership with stakeholders across the sector to develop a suite of what we are calling “Smart Rivers” capabilities to help achieve our vision of healthy rivers and watercourses, including Next Generation Monitoring to provide proven, trusted data and Smart Accountability, focusing on pollution source identification.

In the meantime, if you would like to know how we can support you to achieve healthy and smart rivers, please get in touch to understand why Capgemini is your number one trusted business and technology transformation partner for the job.

Explore our ‘Future of Series’ blog page, click here to learn more.