40 n WATER October 2026 www.drivesncontrols.com other priorities, and can disrupt communities that depend on a reliable supply. Pressure transients that don't burst a pipe still stress the entire network – valves, joints, bends and fittings – accelerating wear at every point. There is also a particularly vicious trap that operators fall into: when chronic low-level leakage reduces apparent supply, the instinctive response is to increase network pressure to compensate – and this can accelerate the very damage it is meant to offset. Beyond the balance sheet, the consequences ripple outward. Pressure surges scour ageing pipe walls, pulling rust and sediment into the water supply. Brown water at the tap is a direct consequence, and a visible one that is hard to explain to the public. The drive difference This is where variable-speed drives (VSDs) move from being a “nice-to-have” to a genuine strategic asset. Rather than running pumps at constant speed regardless of demand, drives match the pump output to what the network actually needs in real time. Demand is high during the day – and the pump responds accordingly. Demand drops overnight – and the drive reduces speed and holds the required pressure. The result is a network that is never over-pressurised and never stressed beyond its limits The most immediate benefit is the elimination of the pressure peaks and troughs that DOL (direct on line) control creates at every start and stop. A DOL-started pump operates like an on/off switch – running at full speed until pressure peaks, then cutting out until it drops. A drivecontrolled pump runs continuously, adjusting its speed in real time to hold pressure steady at whatever level the network demands. The protection extends to every component downstream — pipes, valves, seals and fittings alike. Simply replacing pipes only solves half the problem. If the pressure regime causing damage is left unchanged, the new pipe becomes the next point of failure. Control and infrastructure must go hand in hand; one without the other is an incomplete solution. There are drives – such as ABB's ACQ580 – that are engineered specifically for water and wastewater applications, delivering precise pressure and flow control, built-in process protection, and energy savings typically in the range of 25–50%. Energy saving, though significant, is far from the only gain. When operators prevent leaks from happening, they no longer have to pay to fix them and that freed-up budget can be redirected into other network improvements. An installation at Scottish Water's Castle Road pumping station shows exactly what is at stake – and what is possible with the right technology. The station was suffering from nine pipe bursts per year on average, each one resulting in detection, material and labour costs amounting to around £1,350. The root cause was DOL pump starting, which sent violent pressure waves through the utility’s network, fracturing pipes repeatedly. On top of this, pressure had been raised in an effort to compensate for chronic low-level leakage elsewhere on the network. It’s an understandable response, but one that deepened the damage rather than containing it. Two 5.5kW ABB water and wastewater drives were installed on the station's booster pumps, providing a controlled ramp-up and a managed slow-down to maintain stable supply pressure. Dataloggers recorded the before-and-after picture: prior to installation, DOL starting produced pressure peaks of 140 metres head. After the drives were commissioned, that figure dropped to 83 metres head – a reduction of more than 40%. The £5,500 investment paid for itself in five and a half months. Annual maintenance savings of over £12,000 have followed every year since commissioning, with an additional £200 per year saved on energy usage. And the station has not recorded a single pipe burst since the drives were commissioned. The cost of doing nothing The technology to address water leaks at scale already exists and delivers proven returns well within any reasonable investment horizon. The harder truth is that too many utilities are still not acting. Across most water networks, the take-up of drives remains far lower than it should be given the scale of the problem. Water scarcity is now impossible to ignore. The cost of inaction – in lost water lost, damaged, infrastructure, wasted energy, and eroded public trust – grows every year. And with pipe systems lasting from 50 to 100 years, the decisions made today are not short-term ones. Getting the control infrastructure right from the outset is simply good long-term planning. The only thing standing between the problem and the solution is the decision to act. n Digital platform helps to prevent water pipeline losses ABB has launched a digital platform for managing water networks, designed to help utilities monitor, analyse and manage their networks, avoiding pipeline water losses and enhancing their operations. The platform includes hardware, software and cloud-based decision-making tools. Called AquaMaster+, it can be used with ABB’s AquaMaster4 flowmeters, or as separate software that can be integrated with existing systems. “With pressure mounting on water resources globally, a great deal of work is done to prevent losses in the distribution system and to help save water through more efficient resource management,” explains Raghu Kumar, global product manager in ABB’s Measurement & Analytics division. “AquaMaster+ will enable this by connecting water utilities to crucial flow measurement insights from their AquaMaster4 or other devices.” The platform offers fleet-level insights, including overviews with GIS mapping, as well as device insights covering flow and pressure shifts, device diagnostics, and remote configuration and management, which can improve response times and cut travel costs. Because the software stores device and generic event logs, it can be used to compare parameters such as flow rate and pressure, helping utilities to identify anomalies early. By adding virtual flowmeters, it can be used to model and compare scenarios, and to simulate real situations and their outcomes. Little training is needed to use the platform, reducing the risk of human errors and enabling quick access to critical information. ABB’s AquaMaster flowmeters measure water flow in real time, tracking quantities of water passing through a water network. They are accurate down to flow velocities of less than 0.1m/s. ABB’s AquaMaster+ platform helps to operate water networks
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ0NzM=