Trinity and CKDelta Take AI Approach to Tackle Key Challenges of the Utilities Sector

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin are partnering with CKDelta to take an AI-driven approach to tackle some key efficiency and sustainability challenges faced by the utilities sector. 

CKDelta is an AI software business within CKI Innovations Opportunities Development (CKH IOD), a member of CK Hutchison Holdings, leveraging data, expertise and intellectual property to drive improved business performance.

Headquartered in Dublin, CKDelta is providing €865,000 in funding to support the appointment of a postdoctoral researcher and a number of PhD students, who will work on a range of research projects under the supervision of Professor GregFenory O’Hare, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Head of Trinity’s School of Computer Science and Statistics.

The research projects will fall under two main umbrellas: predictive maintenance and early warning systems.

Predictive maintenance is a data-driven approach that uses AI to monitor the condition and performance of assets and predict when they need servicing or replacement. As a consequence, maintenance can be scheduled at the optimal time, avoiding unnecessary downtime, reducing operational expenses, and improving safety and reliability.

The research collaboration will seek to deliver predictive maintenance models that provide better insights for informed decision-making, with maintenance currently often driven on the foot of customer complaints and logs of issues as they arise.

Early warning systems represent a set of tools and methods that aim to detect, monitor, and forecast potential threats or disruptions to utility companies. In the case of the water industry, they provide benefits in cases such as leaks, bursts, floods, sewerage overflows and blockages.

The research programme also seeks to enhance an early warning system to improve the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of the water network, reduce operational and maintenance costs, enhance customer satisfaction and trust, and protect public health and the environment. It also aims to develop an anomaly detection system to identify near real-time differences from expected behaviours, which may be reusable/adaptable to other situations.

In addition to the funding, experts from CKDelta will be providing the platforms in which the Trinity researchers can investigate the data, as well as offering data engineering and data science support.

Prof. Gregory O’Hare, Trinity, said: “We are very grateful to CKDelta for their support and look forward to pooling our expertise as we seek to address some of the most pressing challenges affecting the utilities sector. The scale of the challenges means there is also a significant opportunity to improve sustainability and efficiency, and we believe our data- and AI-driven approach offers great potential in taking a tangible leap forwards.

“We hope that this collaboration will form the basis of a sustained, trusted and mutually beneficial relationship. This will be centred around a co-laboratory where the shared expertise of both Trinity and CKDelta will help with the effective, informed and judicious adoption and deployment of appropriate cutting-edge AI technologies within the CKDelta utilities client portfolio and beyond.”

Joe Parker, CEO of CKH IOD, said: “This collaboration combines two complementary forces in AI: the frontier research capabilities of Trinity College Dublin—and its ability to experiment, innovate and test new ideas without restriction in a way that few commercial organisations can; with CK Delta’s unique capacity to apply innovation directly to real-world commercial challenges, to help businesses thrive in an increasingly data-driven economy.

“Throughout the next four years, the partnership will generate new streams of knowledge transfer, with cross-pollination of skills, perspectives and specialisms that may otherwise be impossible.”