SEMF automates Sugarloaf in record time

The Sugarloaf Pipeline will provide a significant boost to Melbourne’s water supply, and is a key part of the Victorian government’s three-pronged approach to securing Melbourne’s water reserves. The 70 km pipeline will transfer water from the Goulburn River, near Yea, to the Sugarloaf Reservoir, outside Yarra Glen on Melbourne’s outskirts.

It will boost Melbourne’s water supply by an additional 75 billion litres per annum while at the same time ensuring there is sufficient water for farmers in Victoria’s north-east.

Consulting engineering and environmental solutions company SEMF was awarded the contract to supply, deliver and commission the control system and associated software for the $625 million pipeline project, and has completed the project in just eight months. This enabled the overall pipeline project to be completed five months ahead of its contracted date.

The turnaround time on the automation was a major feat given the complexity of the project and the quantity of hardware and software required for successful implementation.

According to SEMF’s Andrew Bongetti - who was project manager and principal electrical engineer for the $2.3 million undertaking - as many as 16 PLCs, 19 touch screens, 26 electrical panels, 5000 database tags and a vast array of communications equipment were required to manage the pipeline.

“Given the amount of software required to program all the equipment, four software engineers worked full-time during those eight months, with an additional six commissioning engineers on site during the peak implementation phase.”

The pipeline works as follows: the Goulburn River Pump Station pumps water from the river to the Sheoak High Lift Pump Station which pumps it to a control storage tank; the control storage tank, perched on top of the Great Dividing Range, releases the water under gravity to the outlet control valve, located on the banks of the Sugarloaf Reservoir; the valve is the discharge point for the water into the Sugarloaf Reservoir; a mini hydro system (separate from the work done by SEMF on the pipeline and located near the outlet control valve) generates up to 4.7 MW of power from water flowing under gravity from the control storage tank, helping to offset the energy consumption of the two pump stations; the Yea Substation converts 66 kV to 22 kV electricity for the pump stations along the pipeline.

SEMF’s Melbourne-based automation group was responsible for writing the software that controls the pipeline operation. This entailed programming the 16 PLCs that control pumps, valves and tanks involved in transferring water from the Goulburn River to the Sugarloaf Reservoir.

SEMF programmed the 19 touch screens distributed along the pipeline as well as interfacing the control system with third-party plant and equipment including Melbourne Water’s SCADA. It also configured the mini hydro system, a river gauging station, switchboard protection equipment for 690 VAC, 6.6 kV, 22 kV and 66 kV switchgear as well as a host of different equipment across the entire project.

According to Bongetti, the complex nature of the automation project stemmed from the size of the project and the varying terrain it covered. “Basically, our control plant was 70 km long and covered terrain which varied in altitude considerably.

“What this meant was that our software engineers needed to develop, implement and commission a control system that was not only extremely robust but that was also extremely flexible and capable of incorporating Melbourne Water’s requirements.”

SEMF also used the full array of communications protocols for the pipeline. These included multiple and extended Ethernet Hyper-Ring topologies over fibre and copper, Modbus over fibre and copper, DeviceNet, ControlLogix Producer/Consumer, GWIP Link and HART.

The primary network consisted of ethernet over fibre-optic cables, which linked the pump stations and Yea substation. Subsidiary networks of ethernet over copper linked the PLCs and touch screens within each station.

A government wideband internet protocol (GWIP) was used to link the Goulburn River end of the pipeline with the southern end of the pipeline at the Sugarloaf Reservoir while a fibre-optic network linked the outlet control valve PLC to the control storage tank at the top of the Great Dividing Range.

The end product is a highly integrated control system which is capable of uniting an extensive array of disparate equipment to operate the pipeline and communicate with the SCADA system that manages Melbourne Water’s operations across Melbourne.