Geospatial technology specialist MGISS and two northern utility providers have launched a project to use satellite data to detect risks posed to utility services by new building developments.
Part-funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), the project will use satellite data and services to automatically detect changes to the built environment within close proximity of critical utility assets.
Gas and water outages caused by developments are a growing problem, according to MGISS, and the Interruption Prevention Alert Service (IPAS) – as the project is known – will offer a preventative solution.
According to the consortium, the challenges that utilities providers face are also likely to intensify with the government’s anticipated easing of UK planning laws as part of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, along with proposed additional investment in infrastructure and housebuilding.
The €1m project, supported by €500,000 of match funding from ESA, will run for an initial two years to test its technical and commercial viability, and to develop a go-to-market plan.
MGISS is heading up the project in collaboration with data partner, Geospatial Insight, plus Northumbrian Water Group and Northern Gas Networks and the funding partners, ESA and the UK Space Agency (UKSA).
Clive Surman-Wells, innovation partnerships manager at Northumbrian Water Group, explained: “Building works on or near our strategic mains pose a very real threat to the resilience of water supply to our customers.
“It’s very challenging to detect and intervene early because our network covers such a huge geographical area. The IPAS project offers an ‘eye-in-the-sky’ solution, leveraging satellite data and combining it with our own asset data records to proactively identify risks sooner.
“Our operations team at Essex and Suffolk Water will be working with MGISS and Geospatial Insight on the initial test area, and we are planning to expand the trial across all of our regions by 2024.”
Mike Cooper, innovation and strategy manager at MGISS, said: “We’ve been successfully supporting our utility partners for several years, helping them to build richly attributed and accurate asset records.
“This solution will enable utilities providers to leverage investment in those data records, combining them with change-detection data from satellite services to enable them to avoid supply disruption via a preventative insight service”.
Michael Darracott, MD at MGISS, added: “We already have a significant amount of interest from operators within the water and gas sectors, and we envisage wider potential in other sectors of the UK and global economies.”
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