Remote - Winter 2013 - (Page 14)

Applications - Feature Satellite Communications for Water Metering and Other Water Applications Anu Sood, Global Channels Manager SkyWave Mobile Communications Like many other water utilities, Rural Water District No. 1 in Washington County, Kansas has the challenge of reading water meters and managing water sources spread across large areas of land. With 650 rural customers located across a service landscape of nearly 500 square miles, having district employees read each meter every month is a time-consuming task. While self-read systems allow customers to call and mail in their meter reading every month, thereby reducing the need for water district employees to drive to individual sites, the challenge is to get customers to read their meters on time and accurately for proper billing. There is also the issue of lost water, delayed payments, and the difficult task of collections. Washington RWD 1 had another challenge in addition to getting accurate meter readings every month for billing. Their infrastructure is prone to leaks due to the miles of 1.5-inch solvent weld PVC pipelines used in the distribution system. Originally installed in the mid-70s, the system has undergone 884 repairs between 2006 and 2012, with 142 of those in 2012. Satellite Meter Reading System The District was looking for a way to quickly detect leaks due to breaks in pipelines as well as automate meter reading to reduce the need to rely on self-read systems. Given the great distances in their jurisdiction, Washington RWD 1 opted for satellite water meter reading units provided by South Dakota-based IDT. This meter reading system uses SkyWave satellite messaging terminals to communicate with the satellite constellation. The system downloads and sends water readings from each meter at the same time each day. Thresholds and triggers are programmed into individual customer meters to alert the District when consumption is above normal for some period of time. This allows the District to call individual customers to check their site for potential leaks or failures. In one case the District called a business customer to let them know that they had used hundreds of gallons of water on a Sunday. The business was not open on that day nor was there anyone on location, so the usage was exceedingly and unexplainably high. Upon inspection it was found that a toilet ball valve had failed and water had been flowing continuously. Had the break gone undetected for a longer period of time, the consumer would have been very surprised when they received their next water bill. Nearly 200 of Washington RWD 1 customers have agreed to pay the $10 per month to have their meters automatically read by the satellite meter reading system. The overwhelming support of the system helped the RWD Board and Management add the policy that those who opt for self-read meters must report a reading by the 15th day of the month or be subject to a meter-reading fee. More Satisfied Satellite Meter Reading Customers Washington RWD 1 is not the only water district to reap the benefits of satellite meter reading. West River/Lyman-Jones RWS in South Dakota has also been using the IDT system to reduce their costs and increase their ability to detect leaks. Like Washington RWD 1, this district also has customer experiences that have helped quickly justify their investment in the satellite system. During one week West River/Lyman-Jones employees noticed above 14 www.RemoteMagazine.com normal flows in the Saddle Butte service area north of Midland, quite far from both district offices. Rather than jumping into their service trucks, they logged onto the IDT web-based meter site and realized that one service connection had used 10,000 gallons of water in 24 hours. In this case, rural water was flowing into a private well at a high flow rate. The ability to quickly isolate the problematic service connection saved them service travel mileage and man-hours in investigating the source of the problem. Also, the rural water user saved hundreds of dollars on their subsequent water bill. Satellite for Municipal Water SCADA Applications In addition to metering, satellite technology is being used in other municipal water applications. One mid-sized city opted for satellite for reporting alarms and telemetry information at a biofilter site. Biofilters are critical pieces of public infrastructure that process the hydrogen sulfides gases that form in the sewage system. If these gases are not processed, they corrode and reduce the lifecycle of sewage pipes. They work by first humidifying the gases, and then pumping them into an environment where they can be decomposed by live microorganisms. The operations manager for the site was concerned about three things: 1. "Are the fans working?" If the fans aren't working, gases will not be pulled into the humidifier. 2. "Is the humidifier working?" If the humidifier stops working, the biochemistry process stops and the gases make their way through the biofilter without being processed. 3. "Is the biofilter at the right temperature?" If the temperature drops too low, the microorganism becomes dormant and the gases will not be processed. To answer these questions, the city turned to SkyWave's SCADAconnect to provide connectivity to site SCADA systems and have visibility into the operations of the biofilter site. Connecting Remote PLCs with Enterprise Applications SCADAconnect is a three-part product that includes an asset gateway that quickly connects to remote PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) and RTUs (Remote Terminal Units) to extract data; a communication modem for relaying data from remote sites to enterprise applications; and an enterprise gateway to interpret the data from remote sites and insert them into the SCADA HMI (Human Machine Interface) system. The asset gateway allows customers to not only extract data from the PLC but also to provide the edge analytics portion where only relevant information is sent to the SCADA HMI system. For example, the operations manager is only notified when the fan speed changes by 5 percent. Anything below that is not reported, thereby reducing communication costs and "data overload' syndrome. If the operations manager wants to check the fan speed at any time, he is able to poll the biofilter station to ensure that it is working. This functionality is enabled by the communication modem, which supports two-way communications, unlike traditional auto-dialers. A SkyWave satellite messaging terminal was chosen for this particular site because of connectivity requirements, but other sites could access the same level of functionality through the use of a cellular device. At the desk of the operations manager, data from the biofilter site is now available for viewing using the city's existing SCADA HMI system. The city did not have to upgrade or make any other changes to their system to be able to view the newly available information. http://www.RemoteMagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Remote - Winter 2013

Editor’s Choice
Message Oriented Middleware - The Future of SCADA
Enhanced SCADA Access and Big Data Lead to New Analytics & Optimization Capabilities
Approaches to Powering Telecom Sites
Satellite Communications for Water Metering and Other Water Applications
Remote Magazine Launches Internet of Things North America
Geospatially Integrated Surveillance Systems
Tier 1 Operator Case Study: Intelligent Site Management
SCADA - The Brain of the Smart Grid
SCADA
Networking
Security
Onsite Power
Industry News

Remote - Winter 2013