Project drivers and requirements

Having reviewed an earlier Ecoprod project, ARU identified Aguardio sensors as the way to cut water waste and reduce a labour-intensive manual flushing regime. The requirements were to:

• Detect and reduce water wastage from leaks and constantly running taps
• Reduce the need for manual flushing, using sensor data to show which outlets are in active use
• Generate the usage data needed to evidence the savings
• Cover the whole Cambridge campus within a fixed budget and a very tight timescale

The payback comes from reduced water and wastewater costs, alongside labour savings for the compliance officers who would otherwise run and measure each outlet by hand for compliance.

The scope of the project

The installation covered the whole Cambridge campus, spanning buildings that accommodate teaching, office and residential functions . Sensors were fitted to wash hand basins, toilets and showers, with resources concentrated where most water use and leaks are likely to occur. In total the project involved in the region of two and a half to three thousand sensors, plus more than 400 shower sensors. Ecoprod also fitted two new water meters and automatic reading devices on three existing meters. Where the Wi-Fi network did not reach residential stock, hubs were installed so data could still reach the Aguardio cloud portal.

A tight turnaround

The defining challenge was time. The grant had to be spent by a fixed end of March deadline, which left Ecoprod a very short window to deliver. Ecoprod and its subcontractor, AES National, put the resources needed into the job to hit the deadline, installing thousands of sensors across the campus in a fraction of the time such a project would normally take. The work was completed on time and within budget.

Working with Ecoprod

Much of the installation took place in occupied student accommodation, cutting into live services and affecting upwards of 500 students, with teams working in and around student rooms while students were present or returning. Where students raised questions, they were handled quickly and clearly, and Ecoprod kept to a tight programme that told students exactly which rooms would be worked on and when.

Marcus Rose, the main point of contact at Ecoprod, knew the product and its application inside out, got to know the buildings and worked closely with the subcontractor throughout.

Outcomes and future benefits

The sensors themselves are compact, easy to install and easy to pair with the Aguardio system, and supply a considerable amount of information. They generate temperature and flow data at regular intervals, feeding through to the Aguardio portal. Once embedded, this lets the compliance team see at a glance which taps need flushing and which do not, where there are leaks, and where taps are running constantly and need attention, directing staff only where they are needed rather than checking every outlet by hand.

This is a new, demand side approach to managing the estate for ARU, with scope over time to apply automated analysis to the data and flag anything that falls outside expected parameters. It gives the university the evidence base it needs to demonstrate the water savings the project was funded to deliver.

What the client says

The sensors are compact, easy to install and supply an awful lot of information. Marcus knows the product inside out, knows how it should be applied and worked very closely with his subcontractor and with us. We presented Ecoprod with a fairly tall order, a lot of work in a very tight timescale, in heavily used teaching and office spaces and occupied student accommodation, and they met our requirements with few or no issues. For work that was potentially quite intrusive, it went remarkably smoothly.

Peter Hovell, Sustainability Projects Manager, Anglia Ruskin University