SCADA Applications & Installations:
SCADA for the Birds: Bodega Bay P.U.D.
Bodega Bay is a small, Northern California coastal community made famous as the setting for the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, The Birds. The same rolling hills that provided the dramatic backdrop for the film prominently figure in the system architecture for the Bodega Bay Public Utility District’s SCADA system, as the difficulty of direct polling of many remotes requires that some stations be configured as store-and-forward repeaters.
Originally, BBPUD selected SCADA equipment that they had hoped would be simple enough for their Plant Operator, Oscar Domondon, to configure and program without extensive training. Unfortunately, the system selected proved too complex without a lot of training, and insufficient training options were offered to enable him to manage and expand the equipment. After months of struggling, Bodega elected to scrap the installed equipment and install SCADAPack controllers and Lookout HMI. Oscar attended one of the local three-day SCADAPack & TelePACE Ladders training courses and proceeded to take control of their new system. An addition two days of on-site Lookout training was provided by Sage Designs, Inc.
Bodega’s water and waste water system consists of 3 well sites, 4 storage tank sites, 7 sanitary lift stations and 3 effluent storage ponds, with varying needs for monitoring and control. Their goals were to upgrade and integrate the SCADA system into a more useful tool for potable water production, distribution and wastewater collection operations, and to utilize the PG&E "Time of Use" window, to minimize power consumption and more efficiently track equipment utilization.
The SCADA equipment consists of SCADAPack, SCADAPack Light and SCADAPack 100 PLCs. Analog inputs are "off-the-shelf" level transmitters, pressure transmitters and flowmeters. Programming was simple using the TelePACE Ladder Logic Editor. Communications are a mix of Ethernet, spread spectrum radio and leased line using Control Microsystems' Bell 202 modems. One of the SCADAPack controllers is programmed as a store-and-forward master, providing communications with sites, which are beyond the reach of the office radio transceiver.
System monitoring is handled by a PC running National Instruments’ Lookout™ software package, and is currently under development.
All of the installation and the majority of the programming were handled by Plant Operator, Oscar Domondon. "We wanted a system that would be easy to set-up and modify for future changes or additions. The controllers that we have now allow us to do that without having to hire a programmer to make changes for us." |
