Ignition-Based Waterway Upgrade Ensures Long-Term Resilience For Adelaide Coastline

Project Overview

The Patawalonga Lake System (PLS) is a 1.6-kilometer man-made waterway designed to protect the Adelaide coastline, from Glenelg to West Beach, from flood risks. Managed by the Department for Environment and Water, the system plays a crucial role in community safety by controlling stormwater surges and tidal events.

SAFEgroup Automation (SGA) recently upgraded the PLS, incorporating Ignition to enhance the system with modern automation and real-time capabilities. The key innovations included:

• Real-time API tidal data for more precise water flow control, enabling dynamic response to changing environmental conditions.
• Built-in videos to guide operators through the functional description, improving understanding and operational efficiency.
• A chatbox feature for communicating and recording maintenance work and events, streamlining coordination and documentation.
• CCTV integration for real-time surveillance, improving system monitoring and security.
• The ingestion of 20 years of historical data to aid in effective modeling and predictive analysis, optimizing future decision-making.

The upgrade ensures faster, more accurate flood protection, better water quality management, and increased operational flexibility, while Ignition enables centralized control, seamless data integration, and scalable future upgrades.

Challenges

The PLS depended on outdated, manually operated infrastructure, resulting in limited responsiveness to dynamic stormwater and tidal conditions.

This constraint diminished the system’s operational effectiveness during critical weather events, elevating the risk to public safety, critical infrastructure, and the surrounding environment.

With essential components becoming increasingly unsupportable and maintenance requirements escalating, there was a clear and pressing need to transition PLS to a modernized, automated system with real-time control capabilities to ensure continued protection, resilience, and reliability.

The PLS upgrade presented a critical and complex challenge that needed to be addressed to safeguard public safety and environmental health:

• Seamless Transition: SGA needed to carefully manage the transition from the aging, manually operated infrastructure to a modern, automated control system while ensuring minimal disruption to flood mitigation and water quality management services during all upgrade phases.
• Deployment of Advanced Technologies: The upgrade must incorporate cutting-edge solutions, including automated gate controls, real-time water level monitoring, and advanced sensor networks, to significantly enhance system responsiveness, operational resilience, and data-driven decision-making.
• Rigorous Offsite Testing and Simulation: Comprehensive Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) and simulation-based trials were essential to validate the performance, reliability, and integration of all new components before deployment, thereby minimizing risk and ensuring system readiness under normal and extreme conditions.

The success of this upgrade depended on achieving a balance between operational continuity and innovation, maintaining the system’s critical protective functions throughout the transformation, and ensuring long-term resilience for the community and surrounding environment.

Solution

The Ignition system provided several critical features, including:

• Unified Operations: Ignition integrated all critical lake system components — gates, sensors, and monitoring equipment — into a single, real-time dashboard for comprehensive visibility and control.
• Automated Responses: Ignition enabled automated gate operations based on real-time environmental data, significantly improving response times to flood and tidal events.
• Offsite Testing: SGA was able to conduct extensive offsite FAT and realistic simulations to validate system logic, communication pathways, and operational performance.
• Parallel Operation: The new system was deployed alongside the existing manual infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted lake management during the transition phase.
• Remote Accessibility: Ignition introduced secure remote access capabilities, enabling faster and more flexible system responses, particularly during extreme weather conditions.

The upgrade included multiple unique aspects:

• Seamless Integration: SGA successfully incorporated modern technologies, such as PLCs, advanced sensors, and real-time analytics, into the SCADA environment without operational disruption.
• First-of-its-Kind Modernization: SGA delivered the first infrastructure modernization of the Patawalonga Lake System without downtime, maintaining full functionality throughout the upgrade.
• Realistic Simulation Testing: SGA validated system reliability and resilience through simulation trials that mimicked real-world flood, tidal, and stormwater events.
• Cloud-Enabled, Future-Proofed Design: SGA designed the system architecture with scalability and cloud integration in mind, enabling easy expansion, remote management, and seamless adoption of emerging technologies. This approach ensures that the PLS will remain adaptable to future operational requirements and technological advancements, supporting long-term resilience and innovation.
• Enhanced Resilience and Community Benefit: The system has improved flood mitigation capabilities, enhanced water quality management, and increased the lake’s recreational value for the community.

The Ignition cloud solution provides centralized, real-time control and monitoring of the PLS, offering scalability for future technologies and seamless remote management. With built-in redundancy, it ensures high system resilience while securely storing data and enabling advanced analytics. This future-proofed infrastructure supports ongoing innovation and operational flexibility, ensuring the system adapts to evolving needs with minimal disruption.

Integrating CCTV with Ignition enables real-time visual monitoring alongside operational data, providing a unified platform for enhanced security and decision-making. The Ignition dashboard displays live camera feeds, allowing operators to make informed decisions quickly. Automated video analytics trigger alerts for unusual activity while remote access ensures flexibility in monitoring from any location. This integration enhances the security and safety of the PLS, ensuring continuous surveillance and operational resilience.

The Ignition Chatbox integration enables real-time communication within the SCADA system, providing instant notifications and automated messaging based on system data.

Operators can discuss issues, receive updates, and collaborate remotely, streamlining workflows and improving decision-making efficiency.

The Event Scheduler with API integrations automates tasks like gate operations and system checks based on predefined schedules. It integrates seamlessly with third-party systems, improving efficiency and reducing manual intervention by ensuring tasks run on time and data is exchanged in real-time.

Result

Key Benefits:

1. Improved Flood Protection:

Before: Delays with manual gate operation increased the flooding risk.

After: Automated controls respond quickly to real-time water levels and tides, ensuring faster flood mitigation.

2. Enhanced Water Quality:

Before: Poor water exchange caused stagnation and algae.

After: Optimized gate operations improve water quality and support aquatic life.

3. Remote Monitoring and Control:

Before: Operators needed to be on-site for control.

After: Web-based SCADA allows remote system management, improving response times.

4. Reduced Maintenance Costs:

Before: Frequent manual checks led to high operational costs.

After: Automation reduces manual workload and enables proactive maintenance.

Unexpected Benefits:

• Data-Driven Insights: Real-time data supports better decision-making and planning.
• Public Confidence: Increased transparency and community trust in the system.
• Adaptability to Future Events: Ignition’s flexibility has helped manage abnormal weather conditions effectively.

Before vs. After

Project Team

The successful delivery of the Patawalonga Lake System upgrade was made possible by a dedicated and skilled project team, combining expertise in automation, control systems, environmental engineering, and infrastructure management. This collaborative effort ensured the seamless transition from legacy infrastructure to a modern, intelligent water management solution.

Key team members included:

Damian Hewitt – Project Lead

Damian provided overall leadership and direction for the project, ensuring that design, implementation, and stakeholder requirements aligned. Damian’s vision shaped the transition strategy, balancing innovation with operational continuity and risk management. Damian also oversaw cross-disciplinary coordination between mechanical, electrical, and control system teams.

Kyran McGlasson – Senior Control System Engineer

Kyran was responsible for the architecture and development of the Ignition SCADA platform, integrating real-time API data, historical data sets, and automation logic for flood control and water quality. Kyran led the development of user-focused features like CCTV integration, guided videos, and remote access functionality.

Sean Klemm – Control System Engineer

Sean played a vital role in field device integration, SCADA configuration, and ensuring accurate real-time communication between sensors, PLCs, and the central control system. Sean also supported simulation testing and tuning of control sequences during commissioning.

Orson Hannath – Control System Engineer

Orson focused on implementing and validating critical features, such as the chatbox tool, operator interface elements, and control logic testing. Orson contributed to system resilience and remote diagnostics during off-site FAT and post-deployment monitoring.

Start Date: April 16, 2024

Deploy Date: January 9, 2025