SSE upgrades Emalahleni Local Municipality’s bulk water.
Although Emalahleni Local Municipality has not achieved the coveted Blue Drop award for water service delivery in 2011, some inroads have been made to improve delivery on its bulk water network.
Extensive coal mining in the region makes reliable drinking water supply one of the most difficult variables for a utility to control in the greater Witbank area and the municipality had struggled for a number of years to monitor and control the network critical for fresh water delivery to the local communities. A poorly maintained telemetry system had led to both shortages and flooding, so it had become vital to re-establish this system to provide the utility’s operators with better insight into the water demand and supply requirements in real-time. In January 2011, a tender was published and a contract subsequently awarded to Excelcom, a subsidiary of the SSE Holdings group, to upgrade the defunct telemetry and scada system on the Emalahleni Local Municipality bulk water system.
Project scope
The scope included Emalahleni Local Municipality’s bulk water distribution system, 10 remote telemetry stations and the control room at the treatment plant. The municipality, through Sizatech Consulting Engineers and with funding from Nkangala District Municipality, tendered for the upgrade of the telemetry system. This included the deployment of new telemetry outstations and scada server to operate on a GPRS communications platform.
Having previous experience in municipal telemetry systems, SSE’s Excelcom offered an alternative digital UHF radio telemetry system instead of the GPRS-based system requested in the tender. The UHF radio network is robust and economical to run, incurring only annual licence fees of around R50 per radio. The user, who essentially owns the network, is not dependent on third party providers. A service and maintenance contract has been offered to the municipality for consideration, but for the time being Excelcom will provide support on an as required basis.
Duration
The entire project took three months, this included the installation of the telemetry network, trenching and laying of signalling cables, system testing as well as the development of the scada mimics and reports.
Mostly the installation went smoothly with the minor exception of some pump station panels being inadequately equipped with signal interfacing for the telemetry monitoring and control. Subcontractors were subsequently hired to retro-fit the MCC panels with the correct signals.
Broadening the application
The telemetry system can be utilised to facilitate additional service delivery by providing a platform on which other software applications can operate to provide expanded functionality. Typically, this revolves around the creation of specific reports on water balance, loss detection and energy consumption; using water scheme modelling, the system could also provide predictive demand forecasting.
Benefits
As a result of the upgraded telemetry system, Emalahleni Local Municipality can now look forward to:
* Proper management of the bulk water supply system with accurate measurements in reservoir levels and pump station statistics.
* Remote control of pumping systems from the control centre.
* Improved security and site access control via an intruder detection system.
* Future expansion into other areas of water scheme management including loss detection, management reporting and energy consumption.
Management is pleased with the results so far and there are plans to expand the system for extra functionality within the next year.
For more information contact SSE Group, +27 (0)12 663 4331, [email protected], www.sse.co.za
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