SA Water gets smart in Stonyfell sewers

Stonyfell is one of two locations in SA Water’s new $5 million trial of advanced smart sewer technology, which aims to reduce the incidence and impact of sewerage network faults on its customers and the wider community.

The focus will be detecting sewer pipe blockages to prevent overflows either inside or outside homes, which occur in the Adelaide foothills suburb at a higher than average rate than other areas of the state.

SA Water is one of the first Australian water utilities to use the technology in a comprehensive whole of suburb approach.

SA Water’s Senior Manager of Asset Management Peter Seltsikas said the new smart technology will complement existing ongoing sewer maintenance programs by enabling a more targeted approach.

“We’ve begun equipping Stonyfell’s sewer system with 88 flow and level sensors, which will monitor the movement of sewage in the pipes,” Peter said.

“This will give us near-real time information on where a blockage is, making it easier to know where and when to send our crews to fix it, well before it can impact a customer.

“More than half of sewer overflows from our network can be attributed to blockages caused by tree root intrusion, in otherwise structurally-sound pipes. The roots are drawn to the flowing water and gradually break through the pipe.

“We work collaboratively with local councils on tree selection and placement to minimise these incidents where possible, but are limited with already-established trees.”

Things which are put down the sink or flushed down the toilet – but shouldn’t be – such as cooking fats and oils, sanitary items, wet wipes, and even kids toys or sprinkler heads, can also lead to blockages and overflows.

“The build-up of material like this not only causes problems in the pipes, but also if it makes its way to our wastewater treatment plants,” Peter said.

“We spend around $400,000 a year in Adelaide taking gross solids – the stuff which is too big to be filtered out through the treatment process – from our plants to landfill.

“Keeping our sewers healthy is a responsibility shared between SA Water and our customers.”

SA Water is piloting other smart wastewater network technology in Gawler, north of Adelaide, where odour detection sensors and weather stations will be helping to improve the management of odour from the local sewer pipes.

“As this is the first time we’ll be trialling the equipment, right now it’s all about increasing our knowledge of the network. We will then look at how we can use this information to make operational changes which benefit our customers,” Peter said.

These two pilots are in addition to an expansion of SA Water’s smart water network to four new locations across the state – Athelstone, North Adelaide, Penneshaw and Port Lincoln – after the success of a trial in the Adelaide CBD that has prevented 29 water main breaks since going live in July 2017.

“The success of the technology to date in the water space gives us confidence in achieving meaningful results in our wastewater operations,” Peter said.

“The combination of technology across both our water and wastewater networks, a world-leading analytics platform and the expertise of our smart network team will give us a more detailed view of our underground systems than ever before, and help us continually improve our customers’ experience.”

SA Water is investing approximately $9 million across the roll-out of its expanded smart water and wastewater networks.

Installation of all equipment is underway and planned to be transmitting near real-time information back to SA Water’s Operations Control Centre before the end of the year, with the full benefits expected to be realised by mid-2019.

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