An Internet of Things backed government scheme has helped bring healthy water to 100 homes in the Highlands.

M2M Cloud,  a Dundee based cloud solution company have partnered with Highland Council in creating a solution that helps check for legionella in the water system.

Before the collaboration, engineers had to manually take temperatures by traveling between sites. However, this arrangement has been replaced by M2M’s new Neptune water monitoring sensor technology, which creates an instant warning when the water becomes unsafe.

Preventing legionella

Legionella is a water-borne disease that is able to grow from harmful bacteria when water temperatures reach between 20-45 °C. To prevent this, sensors will be attached to pipes in the water system that will read the temperature every 10 seconds. An ‘intellect dashboard’ at the Highland Council will analyse the information that is transferred via the IoT.

Chair of the Highland Council’s Environment, Development and Infrastructure Committee, Councillor Allan Henderson, said: “The Internet of Things (IoT) has been ‘the next big thing’ for a while now, but in recent years it has developed in a major way, to the point that there are now a number of well tested and useful applications for the public sector. IoT represents a very real opportunity to help local authorities save money, reduce their energy/carbon output and improve service delivery, and a national IoT network provides the connectivity facilitate these projects.”

Whilst Operations Director at M2M Cloud, Scott Edgar, said: “Having a National IoT network will enable any business or public sector organisation across the country to potentially access and benefit from Neptune Water Monitoring technology.  Neptune helps ensure a water system is compliant and also helps with planned preventative maintenance schemes. The technology can also help organisations react quicker to problems and target resources to the right place saving time and money, while lowering carbon emissions.”

Because of their necessary infrastructure, fixed and wireless network solution company, Boston Networks, helped to deliver the solution.