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City of Ottawa, Ontario

Cumberland Waste Water Treatment Station Solution (Canada)

Profilo del cliente

In January 2001, eleven urban and rural municipalities were amalgamated into the new City of Ottawa which resulted in
the formation of a single government structure responsible for providing service to a population base of 1.1 million over an
area of 2,758 Km2. This amalgamation included the consolidation of all local wastewater treatment services into one large
system. The former municipalities had been using a variety of wastewater alarm monitoring and control systems;
however, these were deemed too unreliable and lacking in important operational features to be kept in service.

A new, standardized SCADA system, utilizing state-of-the-art control technology and programming tools, was to be
installed in four pumping sites serviced by the Cumberland Station location. In addition, there was a desire to replace the
out-dated and expensive dial-up communication with newer and more reliable technology. The City of Ottawa hired
Delcan IWS of Pickering, Ontario (formerly Avalanche Inc) to design, engineer and implement a new state-of-the-art
SCADA architecture that not only was to meet current requirements but could also be seamlessly expanded to keep up
with the City of Ottawa's projected growth in the next decade. The SCADAPack 32, with its built-in ETHERNET port and
superior I/O capacity, programmed with the IEC61131-3 family of languages, was chosen to control the pump stations and
return data to the central facility.

Obiettivi del cliente

The amalgamation of independent municipalities introduced a unique set of challenges to the newly formed City of
Ottawa. The original wastewater systems were based upon a mix of system-types and manufacturers. The pump sites
communicated with a series of data-concentrating hubs, which in turn passed their data on to the ROPEC (Robert O.
Pickard Environmental Center) wastewater treatment facility. The pump-site-to hub communication was handled primarily
by dial-up modem technology and required an expensive phone line at each pump station. The system did not provide the
capability for online programming or power-fail detection. Backup diesel generators could not be started automatically and
demanded that a maintenance technician be sent to each affected site. As a whole, the system was determined to be
unreliable and lacking in important features.

In specifying and designing the new system, Delcan IWS had to ensure that reliability would not be sacrificed for low cost.
The City of Ottawa needed a system that was flexible, secure, and easy to- expand and built around non-proprietary
communication protocols. It also had to provide real-time diagnostics, improved scan rates and online remote
programming capabilities.

The system's dependence on dial-up communication had to be broken. The expense of installing phone lines in new
locations and maintaining existing phone lines was not inconsiderable. The potential unreliability of dial-up phone lines
also made their removal a high priority item. Communication flexibility was very important. The ability to integrate both
ETHERNET and serial communication devices into the pump station control system would ensure that several possible
communication paths would be available for backup communication purposes. Timely product support was another
important issue to be addressed. As one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in Canada, the ROPEC infrastructure
had to be maintained as fully operational without any compromises. Easy access to Control Microsystems' Technical
Support and After-Sales Service teams was critical in ensuring uninterrupted operation before and after the
implementation of their new SCADA system.

Vantaggi per il cliente

Standardization on the SCADAPack 32 controller meant that City of Ottawa personnel required training on one type of
controller and programming platform only; and although another PLC type had been used previously, ISaGRAF's
easy-to-use programming environment allowed for the comfort level to grow rapidly.

Implementation of WLAN modems allowed operators and staff to access any site over a wireless modem connection in
their portable laptops. Dial-up communication dependency was eliminated as well. Higher initial costs for implementing
WLAN communication will be quickly offset by the lack of ngoing phone line charges. Payback will be very fast. Our
equipment was deemed reliable by the ater-supply side of the City of Ottawa. Approximately 40 sites had been installed
more than four years ago and have been a great success with the city.

Ultimately, a total of about one hundred pump sites will be connected to the system. Currently four sites are operational,
and more have been installed and awaiting arrival of the WLAN modems. he City of Ottawa staffs are convinced that an
excellent solution has been implemented.

Metodologia di implementazione
The SCADAPack 32 controller and IEC61131-3 programming tools were selected as the solution.

The SCADAPack 32 is a very reliable and cost-effective controller when compared to other PLCs with similar capabilities.
For the projected total of approximately 100 pump sites, the cost saving is considerable. The SCADAPack 32 controller's
dedicated ETHERNET port allowed for the implementation of Wireless LAN (WLAN) modems, thereby eliminating the
need for dial-up modems and the installation of costly, wired LAN systems. Four RS232/RS485 serial ports also provided
the ability for backup communication if desired. Telemetry and Remote SCADA head office location, is in Ottawa itself,
provided the City of Ottawa with the reassurance of knowing that excellent technical and training support was right at hand.

The IEC61131-3 programming environment offered a range of six programming languages that fully exploit the
SCADAPack 32's functionality. These languages, which include function-block-diagram, ladder diagram and

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structured-text, are easy to use and can be intermingled with each other. This means for example, that custom function
blocks can be configured using a high-level text based language such as structured-text, and executed by a low level
graphic-based language such as ladder diagram. At the pump site, IIEC61131-3 logic was used to control local I/O and
accept remote control commands from the host situated at
ROPEC.

Quadro generale delle soluzioni

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