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Strategic Response 3
Improving the reliability of drinking water supply systems
Faced with an increased risk of outages due to agricultural run-off, extreme weather events, terrorism, and cyber
attacks, we will build more flexibility and integration into our water treatment and supply systems.
SR3 - Improving the reliability of drinking water supply systems with Marek Cegielski
This strategic response includes:
We believe that we will need to invest to
meet customers’ growing expectations for the
reliability of their drinking water supplies. The
aim of this strategic response is to provide
connectivity between our water resource
supply zones and treatment works by moving
from a traditional point to point distribution
system to an automated grid system, that
incorporates redundancy and strategic
storage where necessary. The strategic
response could ultimately:
• Reduce the number of water resource
zones from 24 to 11 through connecting
assets;
• Move from 63 to 39 water treatment
works, which are more resilient to power
outages, flooding and water quality
contaminants;
• Aim to ensure that there is never just a
single point of supply to groups of 5000
properties or more - the trigger level at
which an alternative supply, in the event
of an outage, cannot be provided by
tankering;
• Build at least 24 hours’ worth of treated
water storage capacity at our treatment
works;
• Transition from point to point distribution
systems to grid and ring main supply
systems in urban areas; and
• Secure the physical and cyber security of
our assets to prevent supply disruption.
Research and Innovation
Welsh Water will explore the following
research topics to support this strategic
response:
• Research lower cost treatment solutions
to provide more resilient works such as
ceramic membranes and efficient
ultraviolet treatment;
• Development of new tunnelling
techniques with our Alliance Partners to
allow for optimal routing of trunk mains, to
facilitate the construction of a grid supply
system; and
• Research innovative resilient treatment
and control systems, to enable protection
against treatment related shocks, as well
as deal with emerging cyber and security
threats.
Welsh Water will work on this research with
landowners particularly for site acquisition
near new treatment works.
Find out more
If you would like to find out more about all the Strategic Responses please CLICK HERE
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