Upgraded telemetry know-how helped Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water handle an unprecedented quantity of alarms throughout a serious climate occasion, writes Julian Sales space, SCADA service supply supervisor, Ovarro
On 7-8 December 2024, Storm Darragh introduced heavy rain and 93mph winds to a lot of Wales, leaving 95,000 houses with out energy and communities severely impacted by flooding, fallen timber, infrastructure injury and main journey disruption.
With a uncommon Met Workplace crimson warning in place, groups from Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) labored to take care of and restore water provides to many purchasers, working with power corporations, police and native authorities in a co-ordinated response.
Throughout this era, the utility’s operations useful resource centre responded to greater than 8,000 alarms – 4 occasions the same old quantity – with greater than 80 operational belongings shedding energy.
Two months prior, in September 2024, DCWW’s SCOPE SCADA telemetry system – from know-how supplier Ovarro – had undergone a serious software program improve to enhance service and improve stability.
The up to date SCOPE system maintained sturdy efficiency all through Storm Darragh, managing an unprecedented quantity of alarms and information, whereas offering a dependable service to a whole lot of further customers logged into the system.
The answer
Ovarro’s SCOPE – Safe Configurable On-line Course of Government – is a supervisory system that permits corporations to watch a spread of belongings and observe alarms in real-time and contains configuration instruments for dataloggers and distant telemetry models (RTUs).
DCWW has been a SCOPE person for a few years, with Ovarro additionally supplying the utility with a spread of RTUs and loggers to feed information into the system. These units gather information from hundreds of belongings throughout Wales, together with therapy works, pumping stations, storage tanks and distribution networks.
The know-how permits management rooms to trace key parameters like water ranges, stress, move charges, tank ranges, pump efficiency and water high quality, whereas flagging up potential points in actual time.
Throughout a extreme climate occasion, it’s regular for a water firm telemetry system to obtain hundreds extra alarms and alerts than regular, flagging up essential occasions corresponding to energy loss, pump failures, flood and air pollution danger and water high quality points.
In Could 2024, DCWW and Ovarro started the method of updating its SCOPE system from model 1.32 to model 2.3 – a serious process involving 600-700+ software program adjustments. Through the preparation interval, a sequence of assessments, danger assessments and governance checks have been carried out by each organisations, earlier than the brand new system was absolutely migrated in September.
Whereas delivering total stability, scalability and safety enhancements, the improve has allowed the bolt-on of further software program merchandise and offered new options, corresponding to enhanced API integration. API integration is the method of utilizing APIs – software programme interfaces – to attach a number of software program purposes, to facilitate the safe switch of knowledge.
The improve additionally enabled an elevated person load, that means extra people could be logged onto the system at anybody time, with out impacting total efficiency. This can be a key profit, significantly felt throughout excessive climate occasions.
On a standard day, some 200-300 folks from enterprise areas corresponding to operations, central management rooms and buyer providers might be logged into SCOPE by way of a pc or cellular gadget. Throughout an occasion corresponding to Storm Darragh, person numbers may double or triple, as wider components of the enterprise entry the system for standing updates.
All through Storm Darragh, Welsh Water’s up to date SCOPE system managed 8,000 alarms – 4 occasions the same old quantity. The system carried out efficiently below the numerous load, enabling operational groups to handle the incident by way of the knowledge it was relaying again. This functionality allowed customers to make operational selections about essential belongings with confidence, reliably supporting the broader co-ordinated response to the storm.
The profitable end result is the results of a trusted partnership between Ovarro and Welsh Water, and shut collaboration all through the software program replace course of, which took many weeks of cautious planning.
As a software program product, SCOPE is below continuous improvement to fulfill the altering calls for of the sector. Important rainfall is a key take a look at of the system – and one that’s turning into more and more prevalent as local weather change brings extra climate extremes.
