Solving Several Problems for Water/Waste Water Plants

In 2015 we built new pumping stations for waste water. At the same time the decision was made to upgrade the existing SCADA and PLC systems. The old SCADA system was installed in the late ‘90s and PLC systems were built with technology from the ‘80s with a serial communication interface. The requirement was that the new system would be able to handle even the old PLC systems and spread the investment costs for upgrading. At the same time, a fiber network covering the entire county was built.

Our solution was Ignition with Siemens S7-1500 PLC systems for the new stations. The older PLC systems use COMLI serial communication. The solution to this problem was to use Beijer OPC and serial/Ethernet converters. There are also some newer ABB 800xA PLC systems which are connected to Ignition with ABB OPC. Smaller pump stations and booster stations in the town are connected by radio link to PLC systems.

The old SCADA system could not manage reports. The reporting system was built with Microsoft Access. To carry out all changes involved a lot of work. Ignition, with its built-in reporting tool, solves this problem easily. We are using transaction groups for daily reports, flow calculations, average values and operating times.

Operators had, in addition to a server, only one client available. Now every workplace has access to the new SCADA system, and operators are able to use tablets connected with WLAN when they are out at the stations.

Ignition has made it easy to implement requirements such as weather data and maps. As an example: guidance-requests on the map. Operators also have the opportunity to enter the coordinates for the plants.

We now have a facility where we can make changes remotely. Before, we had to make the changes on site, recompile and restart. Changes that previously meant big costs have been reduced. With Ignition, now operators have the opportunity to come up with improvements.