UK Power Networks and Northumbrian Water sign up to receive OS mapping

The three-year deal is a clear statement about OS’s commitment to the Energy and Infrastructure sector, and sees a return to direct business with Northumbrian Water.

The new OS strategy has Britain’s national mapping agency increasingly moving away from being just a data supplier to working in partnership with its customers, offering 225 years of expertise, collaboration, innovation and insight.

UK Power Networks uses maps to deliver a wide range of activities, including keeping landowners and developers informed about the location of high voltage underground cables so they can safely plan any excavation work.

Matt Webb, Head of Asset Management at UK Power Network, explains: “We deliver power to more than 8 million properties across the East of England, South East and London and having the latest and most detailed maps available at the touch of a button, is a key tool in our effort to keep our workforce and the public safe, for example, when they are working around our equipment.”

Northumbrian Water will use the data to become a national leader in sustainable clean and waste water solutions. Clive Surman-Wells, Operational Solutions Manager at Northumbrian Water, says: “Good quality geographic information is incredibly important to Northumbrian Water as we rely on it to locate and manage the assets that make up our water and sewerage networks.

“We were impressed with Ordnance Survey’s approach and we value having access to experts in a range of spatial related disciplines from surveying and photogrammetry to GIS. Innovation is a vital part of our journey to become national leader and we believe OS are an innovative partner.”

The deal with UK Power Networks and Northumbrian Water includes:

• Access to data for their areas of operation taken from the geographic database of Great Britain, which contains up to 500 million unique features and receives 10,000 daily updates.
• First-class support and advice with full access to OS’s geospatial expertise.
• Consulting and advisory services, support and guidance to solve business challenges, from data capture technologies to advanced spatial analytics to desktop visualisation tools, collaborating to solve a range of business challenges.
• And a wide range of geospatial data, including OS MasterMap topography layer, the most detailed, current and comprehensive map database of Great Britain, and Address Base Premium, essential location intelligence to help utilities perform better and enable cross reference to third party data sets.

Andrew Loveless, Commercial Director at OS, says: “The world-class value of our tradecraft is testified by our reputation and growing client base both at home and internationally. A long-term strategic partnership between OS and UK Power Networks and Northumbrian Water will offer mutual benefits. It will help us improve our products and services for a focused, demanding customer base.

“We have a deep understanding of the Energy and Infrastructure sector, its regulatory and operational challenges and have demonstrated new areas where geospatial data can drive change within UK Power Networks and Northumbrian Water.”

OS currently works with 170 Energy and Infrastructure clients and earns £22 million annually from this sector. This new deal now sees OS working with all the energy companies and all the water companies. In the past financial year OS has supplied these clients 124 terabytes of data.