Responsible replacement of water networks at last possible, thanks to Artificial Intelligence

An alarming discovery

We were puzzled by the astonishing conclusion drawn in the 8th report of the SISPEA (French Public Water Services Observatory:

Even though networks are being replaced in France
for a total value of 1.5 billion euros per year,
the volume of leaks has not reduced and
still amounts to 1 billion m³ per year

or the equivalent of the total quantity of bottled water consumed in France during one century!

This is the proof that the network replacement projects do not target the right pipelines.

An irrefutable conclusion

The annual replacement of networks (at a rate of 0.6% per year since several years) remains insufficient. This is, in addition, extremely inefficient and 1.5 billion euros of public money is wasted each year

Let’s be clear:

• YES, the water networks need to be renewed
• YES, without a doubt they need to be renewed some more

And let’s be serious,

The network components with the highest failure risk need to be replaced first

without excluding service connections which represent 50% of the total leakage volume

The solution exists today

In 2017, the French State co-funded with Altereo an R&D project that would assign failure risks to every component of a network, be it pipelines, service connections or others, with the help of Artificial Intelligence. This technology, named HpO^®,received the French Grand Prize for Engineering in 2019.

HpO^® facilitates the preparation of renewal programs
that ensures network replacement for the price
of a few dozen meters of pipelines.

It is high time to implement such a technology!

It is obvious, for responsible management
of public money and water resources