Victorian water security fortified with telemetry expertise

City West Water (CWW) is responsible for the annual supply of 100 billion litres of drinking water, recycled water and the transfer and treatment of 94% of the sewerage and trade waste throughout Melbourne’s CBD and growing western suburbs.

In 2014, CWW appointed SAGE Automation to undertake an enterprise-wide SCADA replacement project, delivering improved security, data access and business efficiencies.

Following this, CWW wanted to upgrade its telemetry network in order to realise the full benefits of the new SCADA system. 

City West Water engaged SAGE to undertake the upgrade of the Telemetry network which comprises of over 200 remote telemetry sites, from water and sewerage through to alternative water.

The works included the the replacement of equipment nearing end of life, as well as their GSM and PSTN networks. This was critical given the impending closure of Telstra’s 2G network in 2016 and the PSTN services being replaced with the NBN.

As with most SCADA systems that include a telemetry network for monitoring and control, these systems are mission critical and must be secure and supported by modern active technology.

To deliver efficiencies in the field and the SCADA system, the project team developed a number of unique software and hardware tools to overcame the challenge of a vast variety of different RTU code.

Some of these tools include;

• Project goods management system
• RTU vendor engagement in CP-30 code development, verification and site deployment
• Client engagement during the initial stages of the CP- 30 code development and verification
• Custom site code change spreadsheet, for converting Kingfisher data points to DNP3
• Site type configuration templates and library files for sites being converted to Kingfisher CP-30
• Dedicated telemetry development and test environment, including custom VM’s
• Prearrange site work tubs for site deployments
• Custom I/O test boxes to simulate field I/O
• Roadside work tents to ensure site team could continue working safely in inclement weather
• Custom ClearSCADA site conversion tool from Kingfisher to DNP3
• Custom automated commissioning report generator