Trends in SCADA: New technologies and adaptive processes

As SCADA operations face increased demand for cost reduction and enhanced efficiency, the spotlight is on enabling new capabilities, and it’s in new technology and adaptive processes that SCADA teams are focusing their efforts.

The SCADA Australia 2015 conference, held in May, highlighted four technology trends in particular that have gained increased traction, with specific examples shown of how organisations are adopting new technology and changing their operational and corporate processes accordingly.

New Online Remote Networks (NuROns)

High-speed communication hubs are being developed to empower organisations with greater asset control. The combination of design know-how and communications networks is the key to real-time monitoring and asset management.

Victoria’s South East Water replaced its digital radio system with a high-speed IP-based communications hub with 3G and 4G cellular modems, as well as DSL direct links. Wireless HSPA machine-to-machine (M2M) routers also now facilitate remote monitoring and control of thousands of sewage pump units.

Complementing the fixed assets, the low-powered sensor system is all about pressure, quality and flow monitoring within the network, in order to identify and predict leaks before they burst. It is essentially a battery-powered, centrally controlled network deployed across a wide area, in which data is collated and routed back to the SCADA system for analysis.

By integrating this IP communications backbone with the existing infrastructure, South East Water will eventually conduct a digital residential meter rollout. Specific network assets like pump stations can then become bases for digital metering collector points.

Figure 1: NuRON interface. Image courtesy of South East Water. For a larger image, click here.

For the first time, the organisation will be able to know where water and sewage are actually flowing and when it’s occurring. This will also translate to important customer benefits, such as providing consumers with information of consumption rates based on accessible and real-time information, due to the automatic leak detection capability.

Andrew Forster-Knight, group manager — intelligent systems at South East Water, says: “We’re not doing this for the next one or two years, but well up to the next 15 years and possibly beyond. However, because of that forward-thinking approach, you’ve got to start considering what sensor technology will be out there in 10 years’ time; what the requirements will be; what predictive elements will be attributed to assets; and how the network will manage them.”

South East Water’s NuRON investment highlights the important crossroad between technology and process. By adapting the SCADA system to accommodate new technology, the organisation is harnessing a strategic advantage for long-term asset management.

Multisystem interoperability

The introduction of IEC 61850 is an example of wider industry efforts to address the number of available vendor systems.

At Victoria University in Melbourne, the first Zone Substation Simulator Centre (VZSSC) will soon open — a project that will revolutionise interoperability for technicians to isolate generic object-oriented substation event (GOOSE) signals.

The centre simulates 22–66 kV substation environments (specifically a two-transformer zone substation with dual MV buses), control and protection schemes using the IEC 61850 technology standard for the automation and control designs.

While a breaker and a half configuration will define the subtransmission side, the protection and control set-up will encompass a specific X and Y protection scheme.

And to ensure automation is fully embedded with the centre as one facility, MicroSCADA PRO synchronised with an RTU system will be integrated. As it is designed in line with IEC 61850 requirements, it will work in harmony with compliant intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) and tools.

VZSSC can provide practical knowledge on the concept and application of IEC 61850, marking an important move to greater interoperability. With completion of the centre due in just a few months, Victoria University will house a world-class, state-of-the-art training facility.

Several of the centre’s key features include:

• unit protection
• distance protection
• end-differential form
• distribution and subtransmission bus protection
• joggle protection
• feeder relays
• capacitor banks and capacitor step controllers
• backup protection.

All of these features are integrated with the ethernet infrastructure, RTU systems, SCADA back-end and the actual remote SCADA control centre (a dedicated room set up next to the main simulator).

Figure 2: Schematic diagram of X-protection for VZSSC using ABB equipment. Image courtesy of Dr Akhtar Kalam. For a larger image, click here.

Graeme McClure, principal engineer — protection, control & automation at AusNet Services and consultant on the project’s development explains: “Relays were provided by GE and ABB, whilst Siemens supplied the ethernet equipment and Doble Engineering donated the testing facilities. Weidmuller provided the hook-up equipment and ASC delivered the fibre-optic technology. Many vendors have customised their own packages without IEC 61850 compatibility, which is why the centre is a crucial step forward for interoperability.”

Stray signals can easily trigger other relays to operate and cause a system-wide blackout. But technicians will be able to isolate GOOSE signals while running the main zone substation system simultaneously in the centre.

Analytics and business intelligence

The opportunity to harness real-time data is driving SCADA systems to align with predictive analytics, but not necessarily from new smart meters or sensors. Sydney Water has incorporated a customised business intelligence solution to expose 34 LAN-based SCADA systems to corporate users. The aim was to integrate plant data into one new central server and transfer it to the enterprise data warehouse.

In terms of governance, the central SCADA changes and the plant SCADA are all situated within the Hydraulic System Services unit; the rest is IT.

The project enables improved access to available data and long-term analysis. Technical Services was appointed as one of the main user groups at Sydney Water to provide feedback on accessibility. This unit is designed to improve all of the processes — both chemical and biological — in the treatment plants.

Feedback had initially indicated difficulty accessing data, so the main project team enabled automatic export in real time to centralise the database location. The aim was to change the set points and tune the PID loops dynamically, based on other parameters within the process that could be the demand or inflow.

According to Mirek Januszek, SCADA standards and rechnology manager at Sydney Water: “It’s often the case that IT limitations in water utilities present a bottleneck that hinders extraction and analysis of disparate data. By streamlining data capture, storage and analysis, we can pave the way for system efficiency optimisation. Rather than deploying new smart meters or sensors, we’re relying on existing data streams to enhance energy management and get insight into energy flows.”

Figure 3: SCADA business intelligence logical architecture. Image courtesy of Sydney Water. For a larger image, click here.

Automatic statistical analysis has enabled Sydney Water to quickly respond to anything unusual within plant processes. For most of the critical processes, they analyse the averages and add or subtract three standard deviations, then generate trend data.

When the trends exceed those standard deviations, it automatically produces a report that goes to the appropriate people via email. There are also applications relating to comparing plant-to-plant performance, because the organisation’s strategy is exposed to all of the data — all of the business processes in one database.

As a result, Januszek’s team can potentially check which plants with similar processes are performing better and link automatically to other databases — also within the business intelligence system.

Server virtualisation

Maintainability and security are two factors driving a shift to virtualising SCADA systems and operational servers. When it comes to automation systems at large processing plants, there are often many automation servers which run 24/7. They usually consist of HMI servers, OPC data servers, historian servers, domain controllers, SQL servers, development servers and many more, which function as a data centre for the automation infrastructure.

PT Vale’s mine operation in Sorowako, Indonesia, initially had approximately 40–45 automation servers and PC applications which looked after the automation function for the monitoring and control of the main processing plant. Now they have been virtualised, there are only two high-performance servers performing the same functions. As a result of the changes to the automation data centre, PT Vale has made approximately 50% in capital cost savings.

Under the guidance of Indin Hasan, process plant control & automation engineer at PT Vale, server set-up and maintenance have been designed to ensure the servers operate effectively at all times. But it is by no means an easy task to streamline the automation system. And it can be very expensive on capital and maintenance costs (such as power and cooling systems).

“Traditional servers running a single operating system never fully utilise the available resources (both CPU and RAM). At best, if you’re using a physical server, only about 30% of the resources will be utilised effectively,” he explains.

To address these problems, his team has implemented virtualisation technology to reduce the number of hardware servers and cut both capital and maintenance costs. This has paved the way for a series of important benefits, such as robustness or continuous availability, by protecting a virtual machine with a copy. When this feature is enabled, a secondary copy of the original or primary virtual machine is created. All actions completed on the primary virtual machine are also applied to the secondary one. If the primary virtual machine becomes unavailable, the secondary machine activates immediately.

A virtual server is run on an isolated set of file systems. There is technology available to enable migration of powered-on virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity. Therefore, periodic maintenance will not interrupt the automation servers’ operation.

Thin Client technology has also been implemented to address the high maintenance costs and failure rates of 76 HMI PCs in operation across the processing plant. The Thin Client is a virtual desktop technology in which all the computing process activities of the HMI clients are conducted by servers situated in an independent clean room. Results of the computing are subsequently delivered via an ethernet network (PCoIP) to the Thin Client device — which doesn’t require a cooling fan or moving parts such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives.

“Capital cost for replacing the entire HMI client set-up to Thin Clients is reduced by 25%. Failure rates have reduced by more than 95%, because the equipment no longer requires a cooling fan or moving parts — subsequently reducing fine dust entry and damage due to vibration,” said Hasan. Preventive maintenance man hours have also decreased by 90%.

The SCADA Australia conference brings together a cross-industry selection of SCADA professionals to present, analyse and debate innovation in SCADA and DCS. It is held annually in May. More information can be found at http://www.scadaaustralia.com.au/default.aspx.

Top image credit: ©theyok/Dollar Photo Club