Water Alliance member Samotics, a leading provider of smart industrial analytics to prevent unplanned downtime and energy waste, has been selected by Thames Water Utilities Limited, the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, as its sole supplier for electrical signature analysis (ESA) technology through at least 2025.
The award is part of Thames Water’s strategy to achieve cost-effective reliability through the condition-based maintenance (CBM) of its critical equipment. To that end, three tenders were issued, for three different CBM technologies: vibration, thermography and ESA. ESA is the company’s technology of choice for its fleet of submerged assets, whose location makes it hard to acquire high-quality, high-frequency data. Because the electrical data used in ESA can be captured remotely in the motor control center, there is no need to install sensors on or even near the equipment.
The use of electrical data has two more benefits for Thames Water’s overall monitoring strategy. All CBM technologies detect a broad range of mechanical faults; ESA is the only one that can also detect electrical faults, which cause up to 30 percent of equipment failures. It is also the only CBM technology that can report on energy efficiency, which Thames Water will use to help achieve its goal of net zero carbon by 2030.
After a highly competitive process, Thames Water announced its chosen ESA partner on 19 August 2021. Samotics has been awarded a three-year exclusive contract to provide ESA monitoring technology and services for Thames Water’s equipment fleet, with an option to renew for another five years at the end of the initial term.
“Thames Water did an incredible amount of groundwork for this initiative, so they could install working technology at scale from the start,” said Tim van Leeuwen, head of sales at Samotics. “We are honored and delighted to be their long-term partner for electrical signature analysis.”
To learn more about Samotics’ ESA technology, visit the Samotics website.
