An open data culture is being driven in Britain’s water sector by the regulator Ofwat, writes Jonathan Spencer Jones.
As the need to conserve and better manage the world’s water resources grows, the data provided by smart meters is proving invaluable for their management with accurate billing based on consumption and for example, the early detection of potential leaks based on unusual use patterns.
But that and other data, of which there is a wealth not only about the water and wastewater services themselves, but also how those services interact with communities and the environment, mostly remains siloed within the respective companies.
With the concept of sectoral ‘data spaces’ emerging for collecting and sharing data, the potential for an open data approach in the water sector has been gathering momentum in Britain among the water companies and has become a current priority for Ofwat.
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In a study by Ofwat, several opportunities with open data were identified, including:
- stimulating more innovation and collaboration;
- encouraging new business models and service offerings that increase efficiencies and enhance the customer experience;
- providing insights on company performance and assets to improve decision-making;
- enabling companies to work collaboratively to tackle shared challenges;
- improving transparency for customers and building trust in the water companies.
Ofwat’s approach to open data means making data freely available to everyone to access, use and share — which does not mean that all data should be shared in its basic form but where it is closed, for example for privacy or business reasons, justification is required and it can be made available in a more controlled, aggregated and anonymised form.
As part of the drive towards open data, Northumbrian Water has initiated the ‘Stream’ project in partnership with the majority of Britain’s other water suppliers as well as organisations including the Open Data Institute to put in place the technology and processes to facilitate open data by the sector.
Following the first round blueprint, Ofwat awarded funding of almost £4 million ($4.8 million/€4.6 million) in mid-2023 towards the development of the platform on which multiple datasets can be stored and accessed and the associated operational and management rules to ensure consistency and that will make it self-sustaining into the future.
“We need to operate as a sector as our challenges do not stop at company borders and bringing data together will help us solve those challenges,” says Melissa Tallack of Northumbrian Water, who is co-leading the initiative with Lead Architect Andy Myers.
“Most innovations involve data in some shape or form, so having this sector approach should help to enable future innovations.”
The Stream project is set to last over two years, with the first milestone being the availability of a ‘proof of concept’ with three or four use case datasets around the end of the year.
Two of these will comprise basic company data on service area borders and annual performances.
Then ‘Day 1’ for the live Stream is targeted for April 2024, with what will be a pipeline of sector agreed use cases.
“Our aim is to create a repeatable, scalable, sustainable way of bringing water data together to support innovation,” says Tallack.
“It’s a set of processes and a set of standards and at the heart of it the technology that enables people to access and understand the data as easily as possible.”
