Support the transition to a low-emissions network

Utilities are under increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet their environmental targets. Pressure management can significantly reduce emissions while being fast to implement and giving a quick payback. The UtonomyOne smart solution, enables utilities to optimise network pressures, reducing costs and emissions.

Did you know…

99.9%

of the time, network pressure is higher than necessary.

84x

The global warming potential for methane is 84 times CO2 when considering its impact over 20 years

Reduce methane leakage and greenhouse gas emissions

GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, GOOD FOR THE NETWORK

Methane leakage has an 84 times greater impact on global warming than CO2 over a 20-year period. As it is such a potent greenhouse gas, GDNs are looking to reduce leakage in their networks. Optimising the pressure in gas networks has a significant impact on leakage. As leakage is proportional to pressure, if pressure is lowered on average by 25%, there will be 25% less leakage. Utonomy’s pressure management minimises leakage while maintaining minimum service levels, enabling you to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Many towns and cities have a network of low-pressure gas distribution pipes supplied from medium pressure networks via a large number of governors which typically drop the pressure to 30-100 mbar.

There are more than 26,000 governors in the UK network alone and most of them are set manually.

CURRENT PRESSURE MANAGEMENT

Pressures are set manually at the governor station. These need to be set conservatively high to cover the worst-case scenario, i.e. the coldest winter day experienced in 20 years.

99.9% of the time, network pressure is higher than necessary. As leakage is proportional to pressure, this leads to excess leakage from the thousands of small leaks that are undetectable or uneconomic to repair. That’s a high financial cost for the utility – and devastating for the environment.

Optimising the pressure across the network is a complex problem to solve. At any given time, we need to know the individual setting for each of the governors feeding the network that gives the lowest average pressure across the network without going below the minimum. This is challenging:

  • Demand in the network changes continuously
  • The pressure loss in the pipes between the governors and low points is varying with demand. This requires constant changes in governor settings
  • The networks have multiple governors all influencing each other
  • There are multiple low points none of which must be allowed to go below a minimum pressure threshold

N.B. This diagram shows one governor and one low point to illustrate the method. Usually, there are multiple governors and low points

The solution – Machine learning and AI(1)

  • Machine learning models are created for the network and updated regularly and automatically
  • Using these models a schedule of governor set-points is created and downloaded to the governor stations once a day
  • Data is uploaded back to the platform to feed back into the models

The Utonomy system continuously and automatically adjusts governor output pressure so that pressure at the low points remains just above the minimum.

Excess pressure and excess leakage are removed from the network

  1. Utonomy Upredict software is currently under development This software will be available in Q1 2025

UTONOMY’S PRESSURE MANAGEMENT

Can be quickly and simply retrofitted to existing equipment without costly upgrades or downtime. The actuator is compatible with most pilot-operated regulators, regardless of the manufacturer while the comms device installed at the governor communicates with Utonomy’s cloud hosted software via the mobile phone network. The system gives you the flexibility to expand as required. Start with locally programmed standalone pressure management and quickly and simply add functionality, such as comms and autonomous pressure management, as and when you need it.