Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project
The specific problem/need to be addressed
Across Europe and the world, the installation of underground utility services continues to grow. Population growth in EU urbanised areas means increased overall demand for utilities, while 21st century communications networks and renewable smart energy grids require infrastructural upgrades in the form of new cutting edge fibre-optic and high voltage cables respectively. With Europe’s cities accounting for almost 68% of the continent’s overall population, the multitude of underground services in these areas is becoming increasingly congested. For example, the city of Rome’s 3million inhabitants are serviced by 65,000km of pipes and cables buried beneath its streets. With the ground beneath Europe’s cities streets already overcrowded, the delivery of vital utilities through the installation and maintenance of new and existing underground services is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous. The personnel working in the various utilities sectors (telecoms, water, gas, electricity etc) face daily challenges with regard to safe excavation installation and maintenance, with matters likely to be further compounded with integration of infrastructure for “Smart Cities”.
The issue of overcrowded underground utilities and unsafe excavation is compounded by the absence of accurate underground piping and cabling records. In many instances these records don’t comply with any common standard and will only provide basic location details, such as the side of the road in which a service is buried. Commonly, no reference to diameter, lay depth, or material of the pipe/cable will be provided. For more historical services, quite often the topographical features by which they were originally referenced have changed unrecognisably. Additionally, the conversion of old hardcopy paper drawings to digital format has led to degradation in original accuracy. Workers across all sectors must slowly hand-dig numerous “trial holes” before the real work can actually begin; a process that is laborious, slow, costly and outdated.
It is hardly surprising therefore that engineering contractors working with poorly referenced utilities location data in congested service areas are causing 90,000 incidences of third party damage to European gas pipelines annually. Europe is not alone in this regard; the Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) recorded over 230,000 incidents in Canada and the USA of underground utility damage caused during excavation activities undertaken in 2012. Almost 46,000 of these incidences were due to insufficient locating practices.
The impact of such damage is wide-ranging. In Europe it is estimated that there are approximately 120 deaths and 6,000 serious injuries attributed to contact with the electricity network every year (based on UK data). Repair costs for damaged services can run into many millions of euros. As an example roughly €200 million is spent on rectifying third party damage to buried services in the UK. Repair work is responsible for further traffic disruptions. Such disruption do little to reduce the €110billion annual cost of road congestion in Europe.
The business opportunity
It is clear that there is an urgent need for a cost effective, rapid, compact, high performance “all services avoidance” solution that: protects the safety of utilities service maintenance personnel; prevents utilities damage; speeds up location of excavation zones; and helps minimise disruption to the travelling public. Currently no existing technologies are capable of delivering all these outcomes. As pioneers and leaders of GPR technology, PipeHawk Plc has developed a totally unique and effective services avoidance technology, without the associated expense and user complexity of current GPR systems. “e-Safe” (Electronic Service Avoidance For Everyone) is able to detect the presence of all types of utility services, including those that are non-conductive and/or non-metallic (plastic, fibre optic etc). Our solution is developed to technology readiness level six (TRL6) and has been demonstrated in a relevant environment.
Overall innovation project objectives
To bring to market readiness a novel underground-services avoidance system with universal detection capability. Our primary end-users are those employed by the companies responsible for the installation and maintenance of all underground utilities services (electricity, gas, water, telecoms etc). For the very first time these end-users will be offered the capability to easily detect the presence of ALL services in a single device prior to breaking the surface. Our specific innovation project objectives are:
1. To dramatically improve site safety for the end-user and deliver productivity related savings of >€50K per team per year by allowing the user to establish more quickly where it is safe to excavate
2. To reduce the cost of damage repair work by >€100million 5 years post project for contractors and utilities providers
3. To reduce utilities disruptions to general public across all the utilities sectors (electricity, gas, water, telecoms) and to reduce the impact of traffic congestion
4. To refine design of the product for market sale and use as well as design for manufacture
5. To develop a pilot line for scaling-up manufacturing to produce the e-safe for €1,750 (cost of Manuf.)
6. To capture up to 5% of the global market (8,000 units), generate annual revenues of €30.4 million (€16.4 million profit), and create 70 new jobs by year 5 post project
