Yorkshire Water, a subsidiary of Kelda, manages the collection, treatment and distribution of water to domestic and business customers across Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and parts of Derbyshire. The company supplies around 1.24 billion litres of drinking water every day and collects, treats and disposes of about one billion litres of waste water safely back into the environment.

Operating more than 700 water and sewage treatment works, 120 reservoirs and over 40,000 miles of water and sewerage mains, Yorkshire Water is committed to maintaining them in good working order and continually improving them for future generations to protect public health, the environment and public water supply.

After a successful trial, the equipment was permanently installed in one of Yorkshire Water’s operational support vehicles which is also used to provide communications support at major incidents and training exercises. It has even been used to provide essential communications backup for Yorkshire Water’s HQ during recent floods enabling all business continuity and contingency planning requirements to be met.

Excelerate Technology provided a static satellite-based solution to improve communications between an unmanned station containing high tech monitoring and control equipment situated just outside Thirsk and the company’s headquarters in Bradford. The 96cm satellite dish and modem was then integrated with Yorkshire Water’s existing IT infrastructure to provide secure, high-speed broadband. This replaced the GSM-based system that was previously used and delivered an immediate improvement giving personnel access to high speed, real-time data that can be transmitted to Yorkshire Water’s headquarters as well as providing higher levels of resilience and reliability. The new technology has enabled Yorkshire Water to react faster to changing conditions and meet its quality standards.