UK tech innovation company Fido Tech has released Fido Direct, an end-to-end solution combining artificial intelligence (AI), hardware and on-the-ground expertise that identifies water leaks on 24 Jan 2023.
The company partnered with water services company Northumbrian Water to achieve 37% leakage reduction across 15 assigned district metering areas (DMAs). The utility targets to reduce leakage across its network by 17% by 2025.
Fido Direct was deployed to sweep vast areas of the network accurately, allowing the utility to target and prioritise leaks by size using Fido’s AI leak sizing capabilities.
Victoria Edwards, its founder and CEO, said: “It is unacceptable that we continue to lose huge quantities of water while many parts of the world are facing water scarcity. We do not plan to be part of the AI revolution in water. We will lead it.
“Fido Direct is a fully serviced, end-to-end leak detection service that utilities can call on for a fixed fee, guaranteed results and no drain on their own hard-pressed manpower.”
Estimates from the World Bank suggest that up to 30% of water is lost daily in networks due to leaks and theft. In developing nations, roughly 45 million m3 of water are lost daily, worth over $3bn per year. Across England and Wales alone, it is estimated that around three billion litres of water are lost daily.
Solving water losses is one way to increase water availability across watersheds. For example, a regional blueprint produced by Water Resources South East (WRSE) recommended that 70% of the additional water required for the area between 2025-2035 can be generated through leakage reduction and a lowering of consumption.
Fido Tech is one of the companies to emerge from the 2019 United Utilities Innovation Lab, a programme that enables successful applicants the opportunity to test their solutions in a live environment.
In September 2022, Fido Tech announced a multi-million-pound acquisition by water technology platform SKion Water and a follow-on investment led by venture capital firm Emerald Technology Ventures to accelerate the growth of its disruptive AI-backed water solution.
