That job used to be conducted on foot, with hand-held devices, which only enabled the utility to spot-check pipelines, oftentimes when a customer reported a potential issue.

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Now Thames Water, the water company serving most of the capital, has sent a confidential report to the government claiming that the utility could, within five or six years, check the rise of the water table.

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Fraunhofer also will design a system to allow the solar energy equipment to check itself for proper installation and to send its power generation data to the local utility.

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And last month, new powers came into force which allow investigators to cross-check suspect benefit claims with records held by other government departments, bank accounts, utility bills and university registers.

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