In a massive leap forward for smart water infrastructure, Yorkshire Water is significantly expanding its predictive condition monitoring programme. As part of its ambitious AMP8 investment strategy, the utility has announced the deployment of industrial AI specialist Samotics’ Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA) technology across an additional 1,500 critical assets.
Over the next 18 months, this rollout will cover 1,200 wastewater sewage pumping station assets and 300 clean water smart pumping assets. Once complete, the total number of SAM4-monitored assets across Yorkshire Water’s estate will exceed 4,000, marking the largest single-customer deployment of this advanced technology to date.
The Technology: Seeing the Unseen with Electrical Signature Analysis
Traditional vibration monitoring can be notoriously difficult, expensive, or even impossible to install on submerged or hard-to-reach equipment. Samotics’ SAM4 system bypasses this hurdle entirely.
By analyzing current and voltage signals captured remotely from existing motor control cabinets, the AI-driven technology creates a highly accurate digital fingerprint of rotating equipment. It can identify developing faults—such as pump blockages, airlocks, and misaligned components—weeks before they manifest as visible issues or catastrophic failures. According to Samotics, the system operates with an independently validated accuracy of 97% and generates fewer than 1% false positives.
Proven Results: A 571% Return on Investment
This expansion is not an experiment; it is the scaling of a proven, highly successful partnership. The collaboration began in 2022 when Yorkshire Water awarded Samotics a £10 million contract to deploy ESA across its network. Since then, the programme has already grown to cover around 2,500 assets and was rightfully honored with the Utility Week Award for Digital Transformation in December 2025.
The tangible results speak for themselves. Across the existing partnership, the technology has:
- Detected 726 developing faults before they caused failures.
- Prevented 40 potential pollution events, protecting local waterways.
- Delivered a confirmed detection value of £12.87 million.
- Achieved a staggering reported 571% return on investment (ROI).
A Strategic Shift Toward Proactive Asset Management
For Yorkshire Water, this expansion is a cornerstone of its broader £8.3 billion AMP8 investment programme agreed upon with the regulator. The goal is clear: improve the health, resilience, lifespan, and efficiency of critical infrastructure.
Simon Herrington, Engineering Performance Manager at Yorkshire Water, explained the strategic importance of the rollout: “The rollout of Samotics’ condition monitoring system represents a strategic shift toward data-driven, proactive asset management that will reduce the risk of service interruptions and environmental pollution, while delivering cost savings and operational efficiencies.”
Tom Swain, Head of UK & Ireland at Samotics, echoed the sentiment, highlighting the maturity of the technology: “It’s been a real privilege to work alongside Yorkshire Water for the past five years… For the wider industry, what this expansion shows is that ESA is becoming a proven solution in monitoring the critical, hard-to-reach assets that have historically been a blind spot.”
Looking Ahead
As climate pressures and regulatory demands on the water sector intensify, reactive maintenance is no longer a viable strategy. By leveraging AI and electrical signature analysis, Yorkshire Water is not only preventing costly downtime and environmental incidents but also setting a new, data-driven benchmark for the entire global utilities industry.