Northern Ireland Water expands AI asset monitoring programme
Samotics, an asset health monitoring technology firm, has expanded deployment of its AI-driven SAM4 system across Northern Ireland Water’s submerged assets to support the delivery of a more cost efficient and sustainable service.
Samotics was initially selected by Northern Ireland Water – the constituent country’s sole water and sewerage services provider – to provide insight into the health, performance and energy efficiency of its sewage pumps as part of a pilot.
The decision to scale the number of assets monitored by SAM4 was made as a result of significant successes across the program.
In the months following installation, Samotics detected developing faults in two pumps that could have resulted in the complete failure of these assets.
Through early intervention, Northern Ireland Water successfully resolved issues and prevented estimated direct damage to the pumps of over £44,000 ($53,570). Northern Ireland Water also managed to minimise the risk of potential pollution events and reduced their environmental impact.
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SAM4
According to Samotics, ensuring the health of submerged pumps is vital to avoid costly, disruptive repairs and prevent damaging pollution events. Assets’ remote location makes it hard to acquire high-quality, high-frequency data.
SAM4 aims to solve this problem by analysing the current and voltage signals of electric-driven motor systems using a technique called electrical signature analysis (ESA).
The system’s sensors install in the motor control cabinet, rather than on the pump itself, enabling reliable, remote capture of asset health data.
The system also provides superior detection performance for both electrical and mechanical faults, allowing Northern Ireland Water to detect over 90% of developing failures up to five months in advance.
In addition to monitoring the health of critical assets, Samotics is also enabling Northern Ireland Water to track pump performance and efficiency in support of its zero carbon strategy.
Using SAM4’s real-time pump performance curve and energy monitor, Northern Ireland Water can identify targeted interventions that improve energy efficiency.
This includes optimising operational processes to reflect performance requirements and replacing pumps with more efficient or appropriate models to realise cost-savings.
Jasper Hoogeweegen, CEO at Samotics said: “We are delighted to be supporting Northern Ireland Water in its pursuit of securing long-term water infrastructure resilience. This is vital to ensure it can continue to provide the best possible service to its customers today and in the future in a cost-effective manner.
“With SAM4, the team can now focus on utilising real-time, data-driven insights to anticipate faults, improve performance and reduce carbon emissions of submerged pumps, enabling long-term reliability and efficiency of its critical infrastructure.”
