Adam Kingdon, i2O Managing Director gave the following speech at the Water Innovation Event on 9 of December, 2009 in The House of Commons:
"All of us here today agree that innovation is crucial to the water industry. And it is especially important in the battle to deal with one of the industry’s biggest challenges – leakage.
The problem has not gone away. In fact, it is becoming even more critical as global warming and population growth put ever greater strain on our water resources. The majority of water companies in England and Wales are forecasting a deficit over the next 25 years. The South East and London will be particularly badly hit, with Thames forecasting a massive 500MLD deficit without corrective action. And yet leakage remains at 3.2 billion litres/day or 22% and has not come down at all since 2000.
Most water companies would like to reduce their leakage. Especially as they know how much this level of wastage annoys their customers. That is why they set out in their business plans the goal to reduce leakage by 228MLD (7%) over the next five years. However, in the final determination, OFWAT has cut this back to only 98MLD (2.9%). There’s no doubt that the problem will have to be tackled sooner or later and the cost of delay will be significant.
It is obvious to everyone that the priority in this pricing round has been cost and customer bills rather than leakage reduction. So how can water companies reduce leakage and their costs at the same time? They need new technology and breakthrough solutions.
We founded i2O in 2005 to develop such a solution. The i2O technology gives advanced control over the pressure in the network. It removes the peaks in pressure that occur especially at night and keeps the network at just the right level under all demand conditions. This leads to big reductions in both leakage and new bursts. In many cases it also gives water company customers more pressure when they need it. For example, first thing in the morning when everyone gets up and takes a bath or shower at the same time.
Since our innovation event this time last year in the House of Lords, i2O has made enormous progress. Firstly, despite the credit crunch, we have raised £4.2m to fund our expansion in the UK and internationally. This proves that innovation in the water industry can be funded if you have the right technology. Secondly, we have increased the number of systems installed tenfold to over 40. They are now installed with 10 of the UK’s leading water companies. Where they are installed, our systems have cut leakage by an average of 20% which already adds up to a saving of over a million litres/day. The cost of reducing leakage using the i2O system is about half the cost of using conventional methods. And it is certainly a lot cheaper than building new reservoirs or desalination plants.
If the i2O technology were to be implemented across the UK, we would save 200 million litres/day - enough to supply another 1 million people with water.
With companies like Primayer, Balfour Beatty and i2O, the UK leads the world in leakage technology. Next year, we will start installing our technology outside the UK in countries that are critically short of water - such as Australia, Malaysia, Cyprus, Greece and Italy.
We believe that in the future, the i2O technology will become the industry standard worldwide:
I2O TECHNOLOGY-
Reduces leakage at half the cost of other methods and unlike other methods does not involve digging up the road. This gives lower leakage without increased consumer bills
Causes less customer and traffic disruption by reducing the number of burst mains
Improves customer service
And very topical at the moment, it cuts the industry’s CO2 emissions through less waste of treated water
I hope you will agree that we can innovate in the water industry to solve some of the biggest problems."