Wastewater treatment facility washes away control problems with RSView32
The Colorado Springs Utilities Plant treats industrial and residential wastewater, and is responsible for serving over 100,000 area customers with a combined annual flow of 17 billion gallons of wastewater. The system serves multiple other facilities, including the Las Vegas Street wastewater treatment facility and the Sand Creek wastewater pump station, and provides remote monitoring of the Hanna Ranch solids handling facility. Implementing a new process control system and operator interface products to control, monitor and automate the treatment of water at this facility allowed the plant to improve plant efficiency, monitor systems from remote locations and lower overall customer costs.
"In an effort to remain competitive in the marketplace, the system had to be extremely progressive in the optimization of its operations. The implementation of the control system had to support the optimization program to be considered successful," said Jay Hardison, Colorado Springs Utilities Plant, Team Leader. Additionally, being able to monitor systems from remote locations and increasing overall plant efficiency were important factors in choosing a new control system.
CLEANING UP THE SYSTEM
In the initial system configuration, four operator workstations utilized the network; however, the system was recently converted to run RSView32 Active Display Station human-machine interface program. The RSView32 Active Display System software package allows users to securely control and monitor plant floor applications from local and remote locations. Users can interact with, change and view automation system data using either the RSView32 Active Display Station or a Web browser.
At the Colorado Springs plant, the Active Display Clients are located on desktops throughout the facility, providing direct access to wastewater treatment data via the plant Intranet. The remote access capabilities of the Windows NT operating system also provide operations and maintenance personnel with access to the process control system from remote locations, such as their homes. With the introduction of RSView32 Active Display, an additional server was added to the DH+ network, and the workstations moved to an Ethernet LAN.
THE VIEW FROM AFAR
Through RSLinx, real-time data is communicated and stored in the Excel spreadsheet, giving Colorado Springs a cost-effective way to store and monitor data, given the limited functionality required by this application. Colorado Springs alarm-paging software also communicates to monitor and report alarm events via the utilities paging service. This allows users to be notified of any problem areas via their personal pagers through alphanumeric messages at the time of the problem. Due to the automated data collection, done through RSLinx on a fixed frequency, the accuracy of the data has improved through the elimination of manual recording and double entry.
THE CLEAN TRUTH
Because of these improved conditions and cost savings, Colorado Springs is able to offer customers lower water treatment costs. Colorado Springs currently offers an average cost for residential customers at 33% lower than the national average, while industrial customers realize a 60% reduction in cost compared to the national average.
When asked what the future holds for Colorado Springs in regards to its system, Hardison replied, "We are very satisfied with the products offered by Rockwell Software. The continued evolution of their products will ensure that our facility is integrated with the latest and most innovative technologies, some of which are currently being evaluated for integration into this application."
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RSView32 allows users to securely control and monitor plant floor applications from local and remote locations.
The wastewater treatment process control system is configured as a PLC-based control system providing full-supervisory control and data-acquisition (SCADA) capabilities. Eight geographically distributed Allen-Bradley PLC systems comprise the primary control layer of the system serving the Las Vegas Street wastewater treatment facility. The system includes one remote Allen-Bradley SLC 5/01 which serves the off-site Sand Creek wastewater pump station and is integrated into the process control system via a leased telephone service.
Because of the remote monitoring capabilities offered by the new operator interface system, the Hanna Ranch solids handling facility, which processes the solids from the Las Vegas Street facility, can be monitored from the process control system at the Las Vegas Street facility. The PLC system at the Las Vegas Street facility integrates with a PLC system located at Hanna Ranch via a microwave communications system. Critical operations data and alarm events are then reported through RSView32 at the Las Vegas Street facility, allowing operators to monitor and view any problems with the water treatment process.
Colorado Springs' new system gave the wastewater treatment utility a level of automation, process control and information management that had not existed before. "The implementation of RSView32 and the ability to maximize its functionality paid immediate dividends in terms of operating efficiency." said Hardison. "Additionally, quality improvements were realized as a direct result of the process control system - the improved machine monitoring and alarm response that Rockwell Software gave us resulted in both equipment and personnel safety."
Critical operations data and alarm events are reported through RSView32.
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