South East Water is planning to use business intelligence software to detect leaks in reservoirs and underground pipes.

The utility firm will use the technology to reduce water wastage, having already used it to cut internal electricity costs by hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Using BusinessObjects' Data Integrator software, South East Water has linked disparate information systems across the company to locate energy-wasting operations.

By doing so the firm has effectively reallocated resources used for water extraction and processing, making significant reductions to its £6m annual electricity budget in the process.

'This has allowed us to bring all our information together so we can see when the best times are to run different sites,' said Brian Calcott, knowledge management programme manager at South East Water. 'We aimed for savings of three per cent off our electricity bill.'

The company now intends to use the software to create a decision support system, which will help to allocate investments for pipe and infrastructure renewal.

'We have a vast network of pipes and a capital expenditure of £50m a year in terms of investment and renewal,' said Calcott. 'By linking together systems we will have a better view of everything we have.

'Even if we make small percentage savings it can have massive benefits for our budgets.' South East Water is also looking to load historic trend data into BusinessObjects' WebIntelligence analysis application, linking data on reservoir capacity, evaporation rates and the volume of water retained.

'Using historical data and telemetry systems, managers will be able to identify leakages and bursts before they are spotted on the ground,' said Calcott.

By consolidating information such as billing, customer correspondence and sign-ups, the company also hopes to manage demand better, to cope with population growth.

'Extracting and producing water is a very complex business,' said Calcott. 'We can only take so much from a river, stream or reservoir, and the decision-making process gets even harder during a dry season.

'If the government decides that 250,000 new houses are to be built in the region, we need to be prepared.'