Meniscus wins ANUBIS Innovation and technology award

Meniscus won the ANUBIS award for its vision of using the internet as a means of providing value added data management services to the Water Industry. In particular, for using the Met Office's radar based rainfall data to help predict flows to sewage pumping stations in real time in order to help reduce energy use and to reduce the risk of raw sewage overflowing to the watercourse during storms.

By using the Met Office's radar rain data, in real time with data being delivered every 5 minutes, the objective of the project was to determine the time difference between a rainfall incident being identified by the radar data and the pumping station level increasing and to subsequently identify if this time difference could be utilitsed to reduce energy costs and to reduce the risk of discharging to wastercourse during storms. Energy costs can be reduced in two ways:

1. By providing the confidence,and the input to the pumping station plc, to stop pumping during high tariff periods unless a rainfall incident is in progress.
2. To enable the wet wells to be operated at a higher level since the time difference will allow the wet well to be emptied rapidly prior to a rainfall incident.

The ANUBIS project, which is run by e-business experts EMNET on behalf of the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA), was part of the European funded Innovative Actions Project. The aim was to find 10 small businesses that each had a unique or unusual idea about how technology and the internet could benefit their organisation.

added on 28th July 2005