Experience of a MCERTS Remedial Works Programme

5th November 2014

What am I going to say

MCERTS Self Monitoring of Flow – A brief summary

A history in terms of Anglian Water

The remedial works programme

Case Study 1 – A major problem converted to a minor one

Case Study 2 – How do you know its working?

Case Study 3 – When all else fails – A large installation and its consequences

Key Learning points – What to do and what not to do

The future innovation

MCERTS – A little bit of Background

MCERTS Self Monitoring of Effluent Flow

Environment Agency run scheme managed by SIRA certification

Requirement for all wastewater and industrial sites over 50m3/day to monitor the total daily volume to the water environment

All meters that are used under the scheme have to have gone through product certification

Approximately 3,500 to 4,000 sites in England & Wales

WASCs account for approximately 90% of the sites

All sites have to be inspected every 5 years by a certified MCERTS Inspector according to a MCERTS guidelines

MCERTS – Anglian Water’s context

Anglian Water is the largest of all of the WASCs in terms of MCERTS Monitoring of flow with 693 sites qualifying works

This equates to over 750 flow meter installations spread over a geographic area from Canvey Island to Grimsby

This splits into

240 sites with Electromagnetic flow meters

430 sites with Ultrasonic flow meters

22 using other flow measurement technologies

A number of these sites are low flows which are difficult to measure

MCERTS – Anglian Water’s history

Anglian Water put a large number of flow meter installations in before the MCERTS regulations were fully formed and followed best practise at the time including burying flow meters

The MCERTS regulations changed and this included the verification of flows every 5 years

When sites came up for recertification those sites failed the MCERTS inspection as the flows couldn’t be manually verified

This left a legacy issue for Anglian Water to resolve

As of the start of 2012 Anglian Water had 174 of 693 sites with a flow meter that had an expired certificate because of a failed inspection or a site that had never been inspected.

This was the worst performance of all of the Water & Sewerage Companies

The remedial works programme

To turn the Anglian Water performance around a remedial works programme was put in place

A business case for £1.28 million was put together covering all 174 sites.

The scope of the programme had to be reactionary as not all of the sites had been scoped. The eventual number of sites remediated was 80 although all 174 sites had to be investigated

By the time the business case was confirmed and the project went into delivery there was a total of 8 months to deliver all 80 sites to meet the deadline of the end of the calendar year when the EA assessed compliance

4 Categories

Simple Certifications

Minor Works

Verification Works

Major Works

Minor Works

Minor Works fell into a number of different categories

1. Where the original installation was not of a sufficient standard

2. Where the asset had reached the end of its asset life

3. Where maintenance had fallen short and damage had been caused to flow meter installations

4. Sites where the current installation couldn’t necessarily be certified

5. Some element of the flow was not counted and needed to be for MCERTS standards

Case Study 1 - Minor Works

The site in Case Study 1 was a site that the current layout of the treatment works prevented it from being certified.

There was no practical way in which the site could pass an MCERTS Inspection as it was too dangerous

There were 3 options

1. Replace the inlet flume

2. Install a partial flow electro-magnetic flow meter at the final effluent of the treatment works upstream of the storm return

3. Install a partial flow electro-magnetic flow meter on the overflow from the storm tanks during bathing water season.

All 3 options were going to cost over £50k and take

approximately 3 weeks to complete

Case Study 1 - Minor Works

The solution was to hot tap the pipe that was on the surface and thus needed no excavation and install an insertion flow meter on a permanent basis

Technology that had recently receive product certification

Total cost of £8k and gave Anglian Water a capital saving of over £45k over the next cheapest option

Case Study II - Verification of Flow Meters

Wasn’t originally part of the MCERTS standards but rightly was included.

Requires an independent flow meter check of each and every installation

PROBLEM

Flow meters were installed without taking this into account

SOLUTION

Hot tap pipe and using the insertion technique as a temporary verification point

1 site saving of £58k total programme saving of £90k

Major Works

As part of the programme there were occasions that there no other choice but to instigate a major works to install a flow meter installation

All over £50k

Was relevant to approximately 5 sites.

One case it the major works started as minor works and turned into very large job

Main cause were where flow meters had been buried or a previous installation had been done badly with MCERTS not taken into account

Case Study III - Major Works

Two choices for a certified flow meter installation

Option 1 - Replace the inlet flume at a cost of approximately £45k

or

Option 2 - Replace the broken & buried flow meter at the final effluent to the works and put a chamber around it at a cost of about £20k

The sensible solution seemed to be Option 2

Sensible isn’t always right

Once excavated there was no flow meter

There was an asbestos outfall pipe

And a very large hole in the ground

The solution

Remove the asbestos pipe

Replace the outfall pipe

Put a new flow meter in pipe full conditions

All in 24 hours as the site would need to be overpumped

22 hours later and £100k later

Sensible isn’t always right

Once excavated there was no flow meter

There was an asbestos outfall pipe

And a very large hole in the ground

The solution

Remove the asbestos pipe

Replace the outfall pipe

Put a new flow meter in pipe full conditions

All in 24 hours as the site would need to be overpumped

22 hours later and £100k later

Key learning points from the Remedial works programme

There are some key learning points from this remedial works programme and from the operation of MCERTS Flow Meters in general. These are

1. Asset Capture

2. Burying of electro-magnetic flow meters

3. Maintenance

4. Asset Standards

5. Product Certified Flow Meters

6. Installation of the right product in the right place in the right way

7. Training

What’s happened since ………Flow Innovation

Despite their being good technologies on the market Anglian Water will work with flow meter manufacturers to develop technologies.

This allows development of technologies to get the right meter for the right application.

Three trials have been conducted in the last 18 months, with one more to come and a fifth in talks at the moment.

Looking forward to AMP 6The need for investment & reliability

The reason why:

Challenging Installations still to come

Ageing assets

And a large base maintenance programme

120 EM-meter cleans

Innovation in Flow

Project has been going on at Letchworth for the past 6 months in Radar flow measurement

A further request has just been received for laser flow measurement