Vic water utility upgrades SCADA network

Improving network operational and maintenance capabilities is a high priority for many of Australia’s major utilities — be it for water or power and distribution systems.

The main focus for improving capabilities has been the SCADA systems — especially through proactive asset management and data analytics. While there are many opportunities to save costs and increase efficiency by enhancing these functions, it can be just as risky if the framework for improvement isn’t aligned with business needs.

Coliban Water is one of these major utility organisations focused on transforming its SCADA capabilities. A regional water authority that covers 16,500 km of central and northern Victoria, Coliban Water manages more than 350 sites that comprise water treatment plants, water reclamation plants, pressure monitoring stations, sewer pumping stations, water pumping stations and flow meters.

“Currently, the maintenance of our remote terminal units and SCADA hardware out in the field is outsourced to our private partner, Lendlease. We manage all communications, but issues that arise within our RTUs are outsourced, including repair works onsite,” explained Dan Smith, SCADA manager at Coliban Water.

Smith’s team comprises three specialists including himself, and is responsible for all site communications and SCADA software systems, including CITECT, ClearSCADA and related network diagnostic systems. The team is managing three improvement phases that will transform the main SCADA system into an integrated and responsive set-up.

RTU management is usually conducted in-house, Smith is quick to note, but up until three years ago, every part of SCADA management at Coliban Water was outsourced.

“We’re on a path to consolidate many of the management and repair functions in-house. That’s why we’re starting with the communications network.”

Stages 1 and 2

The majority of the network previously ran on an analog UHS system, which had several limitations including low speed, limited visibility on network activity and performance, and no ability to remotely manage assets in the field.

By upgrading to a digital UHS system, Smith and his team will be able to carry out firmware upgrades remotely, manage devices remotely, change power and increase speed throughput 10-fold. This will make it far easier to manage the network, as well as provide more reliability.

While the first stage involves communications and upgrading to digital technology (currently underway), the second stage has just been completed — shifting to an open-protocol network instead of a proprietary one. The move is an important foundational step to enabling the network to support DNP3.

Figure 1: SCADA interface at Coliban Water, courtesy of Dan Smith. For a larger image, click here.

With such a large geographical portfolio, the network has — for a long time — been locked down to support only one protocol. Smith’s team had to change the way the network operates to accommodate an open protocol, to be able to implement an RTU platform that supports DNP3.

Now having successfully moved to an open protocol, the team can perform an upgrade and implement an RTU platform anywhere in the network.

“It’s been a big benefit and has given us a lot of freedom to trial different technologies. We’re not locked into one vendor for RTU platforms anymore,” said Smith.

The priority for his team in the context of benefits is enabling DNP3 event-based reporting. Traditionally, the way data was obtained involved sequential polling across the entire network — in effect, polling for static information every two hours.

The planning team would also have to go out and install multiple data loggers at specific sites for a limited period of time, because the quality of information coming back from the network was relatively poor and unreliable. These data loggers would come in the form of battery-powered device. But with DNP3 integration and the implementation of battery-powered RTUs, this no longer needs to be done. The sites can remain operationally dormant and gather reliable data, which is generally sent back to the main SCADA system once per day.

The data is being used for network analysis for long-term upgrade planning for the water and sewer networks. It is now also being fed into predictive analytics software for asset maintenance.

“There will be significant cost savings once we completely change how we maintain assets on a daily basis. There are many flow-on effects from what we’re doing.”

Stage 3

The third phase of SCADA improvement relates to rolling out new RTU platforms that support DNP3, which will provide higher quality data to the business. This phase, which has just begun, will take approximately three to four years across all sites.

Not only is data quality a challenge in the effort to complete Stage 3, but hardware obsolescence is as well. Much of the field hardware is at the end of its life cycle.

“Our SCADA system was primarily set up as a monitoring and alarming system, but now there are more business units across the organisation that want higher quality data, more resolution. And that’s where we’re struggling, because we have a lot of old tech in the field and not entirely event-based,” explained Smith.

The field RTUs are managed by a master RTU platform in Bendigo, which is no longer supported — the units in the field themselves are not obsolete, but the master platform is.

Figure 2: Remote terminal unit, courtesy of Dan Smith. For a larger image, click here.

Over the next 24 months, Smith’s team will target 170 sewer pump stations for RTU upgrades, thereby improving data quality into Coliban Water’s business systems. At the same time, these upgrades will also standardise the software of the RTU system and align pump station functions.

“We'll get the double benefit of increased throughput from the site, in terms of monitoring and data management, and RTU software standardisation. It's a pretty important project, and probably our biggest focus for the next two or three years,” Smith remarked.

Smith and the team have spent the last eight months market testing every SCADA historian, particularly for interoperability and seamless integration. And of the five units that were tested, only one was integrated successfully with Coliban Water’s SCADA system.

“One of the biggest things that we stipulated with the vendors was it had to be something we could install ourselves. We wanted confidence that we could install it and, if something went wrong, we could look after the product ourselves. We were not interested in solutions that needed third-party products to get the software to work,” he explained.

This approach directly addressed an all-too-familiar situation faced by many organisations. Every time a vendor performs an upgrade, the SCADA team has to reassess whether or not that third-party software is compatible with their integration.

Coliban Water’s effort to enhance its SCADA system is as much a response to current business needs as it is to that of the long-term objectives. Smith’s team is already looking at obsolescence issues in 2023, because the budgets are already being planned for that period.

“We’ve tackled the network, and we’re now tackling SCADA software and hardware. A big part of that is figuring out how all the data will be managed going forward.”

Presenting at SCADA 2016 from 24–25 May 2016, Dan Smith will be joined by specialists from organisations including Jemena, Qld Urban Utilities, Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal and more. Visit www.scadaaustralia.com.au to find out more.