Utility Installs Integrated Monitoring, Control System

The City of Shreveport needed to upgrade its Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA) system used to monitor and control the collection, treatment and distribution of water and wastewater. Like many cities, Shreveport was faced with difficulties common to the water/wastewater treatment industry. The city was using multiple plant and RTU controllers, many of which were nonfunctional or obsolete. In addition, the existing RTUs were supplied by a defunct company, which made obtaining upgrades and support impossible.

The different SCADA platforms at each plant created maintenance difficulties as well. Each plant was isolated with no ability to exchange data between them. The various communication protocols and hardware configurations created intermittent connectivity problems and system lockups within the plants. Long communication delays and slow network response made it difficult for operators to detect equipment failures.

Edison Automation, in partnership with Citect Professional Services, was initially awarded a contract with the city to install a CitectSCADA system at the T.L. Amiss Water Treatment Plant (WTP) to monitor and control the water treatment process, the water distribution system, and the wastewater collection system.

As a result of the project’s success, the WTP became a prototype for defining the control system infrastructure standards for future upgrades at Shreveport’s other plants. The CitectSCADA system was then expanded to both the Lucas Wastewater Plant and North Regional Wastewater Plant to complete the citywide system.

Integrating Disparate Systems

One of the largest issues facing Shreveport was the high number of disparate systems. Remedying this problem was fairly straightforward because all the drivers needed were already included in the CitectSCADA package.

The new system has redundant servers that act as immediate back ups in case of a failure. Each of the four sub-systems also has fully redundant servers to ensure reliability and maximize on-stream time. A separate set of servers maintain the communications to the collection system RTUs.

Interplant connectivity is via city-wide fiber. Ethernet radio provides connectivity to remote sites.

Prior to implementing the new system, users had to either visit each site or access remote sites one at a time over the network. This made monitoring all the sites very time-consuming and expensive. Furthermore, it might take long periods of time to detect a problem at one of the various sites.

By standardizing on the CitectSCADA platform for all its operations, users have the same look and feel wherever they log into the system. Moreover, users can now monitor multiple sites immediately from any site in the system - whether the operator logs in at Lucas, T.L. Amiss or a remote site. Since the same screens are used at each location, training costs and learning curves have been reduced.

The new web-based reporting system has helped with regulatory reporting by allowing reports to be viewed in a web browser independent of the SCADA systems. The system also provides tools to connect SCADA data to MIS data, which can streamline regulatory reporting and asset management.

Security Issues

Security is a top priority at Shreveport. Access control and intrusion detection were simplified by coordinating security devices with the CitectSCADA system. Inexpensive IP-based web cameras at all sites are linked to the system, allowing operators to monitor all the sites from a single location. Other intrusion detection devices were also incorporated to provide increased protection of the city’s water sites WW