Adam Griffith is National Technical Manager for Marlowe Environmental Services (MES), providing in-field support for MES’ specialist teams, which includes setting up process water treatment, on-going compliance and overall system efficiency, working across a range of sectors such as food manufacturing, data centres, hospitals and district heating schemes.
Adam Griffiths – National Technical Manager
Adam has worked within the Group for five and a half years, and prior to his current role he was Account Manager at Hydro-X. He also gets involved in product development, with a focus on enhancing MES’s offering to existing clients, opening-up new markets and keeping pace with change. Adam is also a member of the Water Management Society council, Adam is committed improving standards both within MES, and the wider industry.
Adam’s main areas of expertise, include:
- Leadership: Adam encourages his teams to challenge his views and provide their own opinions. A collaborative approach drives innovation and engagement.
- Process water treatment: He has 15 years’ experience in process water treatment, including steam boilers, cooling towers and closed loop systems at a consultancy level.
- Operational efficiency: Adam is focussed on improving operational efficiencies and the end user experience.
Adam started his water treatment career at a small family-run business. He worked at the company while studying for a degree in software development.
“My first role sparked my interest in the sector, and I’m thankful it steered me away from a career at a desk! I quickly found that being outside talking to people suited me better than sitting in a dark room in front of a computer. After seven years working there, I was keen for bigger challenges, and new applications that use water at scale is a key focus.
Operational water neutrality, i.e. not using more water than you can generate, is a challenge of our age, with water hungry data centres, for example, more in demand than ever before. Adding bleed recovery in cooling towers can lead to the reuse of the majority of water. As the need for data increases and water scarcity becomes more of an issue, it’s essential that water is recycled wherever possible.
I’m also an advocate of moving away from using temperature to control legionella in ASHP systems, common in settings such as hospitals. Through proper water system management, you shouldn’t need to run water too hot, which in-turn will reduce energy consumption. Secondary disinfection, like copper and silver ionisation technology allows for safe heat pump operation at reduced temperatures.
Overall, the UK has been very slow on the uptake of this approach, but I’m hopeful that a few early adopters will start to tip the balance in favour of lower temperature, higher efficiency systems. It seems crazy that ASHPs are being run at unnecessarily high temperatures using electric emersion heaters when the whole point of them is to reduce energy usage, or where this isn’t happening, without secondary disinfection risking bacterial proliferation. Sadly, our industry is generally quite reactive, so it will most likely take a Legionella outbreak caused by a commercial ASHP before this approach is taken seriously.
I’m excited by the opportunities presented by ionisation and the impact it can have on overall scheme efficiency. Remotely monitoring legionella is another area MES is exploring in the coming months, enhancing risk assessments and providing data driven responsiveness, while further facilitating efficient low temperature systems.”