REMOTE CONTROL WATER INDUSTRY
“The
ultimate
goal for Yorkshire
Water is to run
the whole
company like a
single production
plant, know we
are running in an
optimal way, and
to be able to
remotely
reconfigure the
company when
problems occur
Water allocation
Yorkshire Water has developed a new
computer system that enables it to
respond to customer demand for water
in real time. The system, called RTWRAP
(Real Time Water Resource Allocation
Plan) automatically distributes the
treated water around Yorkshire.
Yorkshire Water supplies around 1.3
billion litres of water every day. RTWRAP
monitors rainfall levels and reservoir
levels, ensuring that it
always knows how much
untreated water stock is
available. The system
automatically works out which are the
cheapest sources of water to treat,
selects the water treatment works (WTW)
to use and tells it how much drinking
water it is required to produce.
The WTW then automatically starts to
produce the water. As RTWRAP is in
constant communication with the WTW,
the system can monitor how well the
works is performing.
RTWRAP controls all of the critical
valves and pumps in Yorkshire; the
24 PROCESS ENGINEERING : MAY/JUNE 2009
service and meet all the requirements, whether that is
alarm management or whether it is reporting to OFWAT
or another regulatory body, or forecasting and
modelling,” he said. “The ultimate goal for Yorkshire
Water is to run the whole company like a single
production plant, know we are running in an optimal
way, and to be able to remotely reconfigure the company
when problems occur.
Having comparative, real-time tracking of the cost
of running the different plants displayed on the control
video walls at the Bradford HQ is just the start, said
Parsons. “The business challenge is to run the company
like a production plant and to know that we are
running everything in an optimal way and can model
the impact of anything that happens. This is a really
simple strategy, but one that will take some time to
flesh out,” he concluded.
For its part, Scottish Water’s equipment and services
procurement strategy employs a range of framework
agreements. These are designed to deliver a strategic
alignment of design, and balance capital and operational
expenditure costs, said a company spokesman.
For example, he said, Scottish Water’s telemetry
system already supports connection from a controlled
Automation across entire region
system is connected to all of them in real
time. This ensures drinking water is
delivered to customers in the most
efficient way by minimising the use of
expensive pumps and maximising the
use of gravity flow.
If customers begin to demand more
water, RTWRAP can automatically
increase water production and get that
water to the customers as they require it.
According to Yorkshire
Water, the technology is
helping to minimise
power costs and carbon
footprint by using gravity whenever
possible to transport water supplies,
rather than using energy to pump it
around the network.
Chemical costs have also been
reduced as the system is programmed
to search out the cheapest sources of
raw water first – i.e. water that requires
the least amount of cleaning. RTWRAP
also highlights where demand is likely to
be higher than usual so action can be
taken if necessary to manage supply.
number of manufacturers, which balances cost and
functionality within a competitive framework.
“Scottish Water is making increasing use of IP-enabled
monitoring equipment to take advantage of existing
secure corporate IP networks,” said its spokesman.
“Moving away from or modernising bespoke
telemetry/data storage systems [requires] a balance of
operational risk and capital investment. We have to
selectively invest in our assets based upon factors such
as the asset’s risk of malfunction.”
Telemetry, noted the spokesman, is expensive to install
and requires constant calibration and maintenance.
Another issue is the sheer volume of assets, which have
been built across the country – some in very remote
locations as Scottish Water serves an area of over 79,000
square kilometres.
“Standards adoption in the manufacturing base
appears to be relatively slow, and asset replacement
cycles further influence the adoption curve for these
technologies,” the spokesman continued. “There is no
doubt that convergence has started.”
Vendors’ viewpoint
From a vendor’s perspective, Tony Chapman, product
manager for SCADA, Siemens Industrial Automation,
confirms that the water industry is shifting away from
reliance on bespoke telemetry systems with limited
bandwidths and data handling capabilities.
The trend now, said Chapman, is towards more
integrated, web-enabled systems that can remotely
monitor 24/7 at central HQ. This, he said, is being
driven in part by the availability of always-on
broadband facilities that can get much more
information from sites and facilitate a lot more data
mining and linking into MES/ERP systems.
The challenge for the water companies is to get the IT
infrastructures to span from corporate IT networks down
to shopfloor. Issues here, he said, include limiting access
for different parts of the company and adopting security
standards and strategies across the business Ethernet.
Likewise, Teemu Heikalla of ABB Product AC, Drive
Care, said remote monitoring is becoming increasingly
important in the water and wastewater industries and
now covers real-time reporting and diagnostics for tuning,
speed-up, energy efficiency and condition monitoring.
“Today’s communications technologies bring internet
into the puzzle,” said Heikalla. “As well as sending data
by email from a module directly to your inbox, you can get
fault or maintenance alerts via GSM to mobile phones.
“The high-end solutions have a central database on the
web that enable you to configure email or generate reports
in Excel and combine data from a number of different
stations to get an overall picture across the network.”
ABB, added Heikalla, has noted an increasing demand
for drive modules that give access to web pages and
enable engineers to plug in a PC to get real-time values
from the drive at the application.
PE
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.