Leveraging SCADA Technology and Modeling To Promote Greener Operation of Collection Systems

Early SCADA for collection systems mainly focused on problems such as equipment failures, overflow conditions, power outages and alarms.As communications systems improved, SCADA users have taken advantage of the data capacity of their systems by remotely monitoring a wide variety of measurements, such as pressure, level, flow rate and rainfall. Increasingly, users have recognized the benefits of detailed and reliable data collection for a wide range of operational and engineering benefits, including system diurnal monitoring, seasonal fluctuations, infiltration evaluations, model calibration, capacity analysis, asset management and master planning.The new generation of SCADA technology promises to provide even greater advances in data capacity. Infrastructure connectivity using ethernet can economically and securely include scattered remote sites into the users' private network using fiber, cable or wireless technology. The data-carrying capacity of these networks can deliver a wide range of measurements for hundreds or even thousands of remote sites in nearly real time. Better protocols, such as DNP3, can be used to attach timestamp and quality attributes to incoming data packets. Smarter polling schemes can be implemented so that urgent messages are delivered with unsolicited priority, and when communications are down, events and trend data can be accumulated at the remote site for later delivery so the data warehoused in the high-performance database is reliable and complete.So, what can we do with this new and better data? One goal: Try to be more green! Power costs represent a major part of operating budgets. Being GREEN by reducing power saves money and resources, and helps create a more sustainable world.