Yorkshire Water is set to move to the second stage of its satellite leak detection trial after a hugely successful stage one.
The Innovation Team funded and managed the project which has helped the leakage team across Huddersfield and Dewsbury to find double the number of leaks compared to traditional methods been used, saving 0.5 megalitres of water per day.
Yorkshire Water has opened up its data to Israeli company, Utilis who has used the satellites to provide Microwave ground penetrating imaging to show whether there is a leak on the network.
Yorkshire Water is now moving on to the second stage of the £300,000 investment and Utilis will provide images on some of the firm’s trunk mains in rural areas in west Yorkshire.
Trunk mains in remote areas are extremely difficult to get to for leakage inspectors and cover vast areas.
Jason Griffin, Yorkshire Water’s Leakage Technology Manager, said: “Water supply is a big priority for Yorkshire Water and is one of the company’s five big goals.
“As a company, we have set ourselves a leakage reduction target of 40% over the next seven years and we are hopeful satellites can play a role in helping us achieve that.
Yorkshire Water is also working with other water companies, discussing how the industry can make the most of this technology.
Across the region, Yorkshire Water maintains over 31,000km of water mains which supply over 1 billion litres of water every day.