4 minute read
Smarter Thinking Cities
With the announcement that diesel and electric cars will be banned by 2030 in some countries, five years ahead of schedule, it won’t be long before even more attention is focussed on emissions from the built environment. Here, Matthew Hawkridge, Chief Technology Officer at Ovarro, looks at how RTU’s play a key part in delivering this through smarter, more efficient cities.
According to the United Nations, world population is likely to reach 9 billion by 2050 (from around 7 billion today). This growth will see an increase in the number of mega cities with populations over 10 million. Sydney and Melbourne already have a population greater than 5 million. The demands on energy, traffic and utilities will be acute although making cities smarter is one way of tackling this challenge and here we look at why RTU’s can deliver this utopia.
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What are RTU’s?
The best way of thinking about RTU’s is that they are ‘mini-computers in the field’, so adding one to an older asset can make it ‘smart’. RTU’s help optimise assets in both near and remote applications – particularly useful for renewable assets that will supply the mega cities. Their principal role is to provide monitoring and control, although functionality now goes far beyond this with an ability to collect, analyse and act upon data.
What role do RTU’s play in smart buildings?
The principal benefit of RTU’s is that they enable buildings and indeed entire cities to be remotely monitored, allowing status of a vast range of assets such as traffic lights, electrical substations, transport nodes and HVAC systems, amongst others, to be regularly verified from a laptop or smart device. The RTU’s gather, interpret and act upon this data. They can also monitor the external environment, for example, local temperature, which can be useful when optimising energy efficiency. The point is, and specifiers may not realise it, that an RTU is able to solve many of the problems they face in mega cities or any built up conurbation.
How can digital twin help smart cities?
Digital twin involves the replication of a physical asset, process or system to create a virtual representation of the physical world, like a simulation using 3D renderings of CAD models. It can be used in smart cities to predict different outcomes based on variable data, running as simulation scenarios until the optimum outcome is identified – all within the digital space.
Digital twin uses real time data gathered by sensors, PLC’s or RTU’s. Although data can be gathered using all three methods, it is the RTU that offers the distinct advantage over PLC’s and sensors of being environmentally robust – essential when tens of millions of people in a mega city rely on the systems.
Digital twin uses real time data gathered by sensors, PLC’s or RTU’s. Although data can be gathered using all three methods, it is the RTU that offers the distinct advantage over PLC’s and sensors of being environmentally robust – essential when tens of millions of people in a mega city rely on the systems.
How robust are RTU’s?
RTU’s are resilient to environmental extremes, withstanding anything from -40C to +70C climatic temperatures. Having multiple, independent communications links, redundant power supplies and redundant process controllers provides another buffer to site conditions and future technological developments. Their resilient nature and layers of redundancy ensure that RTU’s are a reliable part of a mega city’s support infrastructure.
How can RTU’s support maintenance partners?
Where maintenance of assets within a smart city are factored out, knowing the status of the device before the end customer ensures better outcomes for all project partners. Where the asset could potentially develop a fault, RTU’s enable maintenance teams to take preventative action. For smart cities this can be critical to flow of people, for example, avoiding an outage at a transport interchange. Another useful feature is being able to control the asset from a smart device to ensure that it is fully functional. Again, without an RTU, it would require a visit to the site by an engineer.
Can RTU’s help companies meet environmental commitments?
With a growing focus on the environment, ‘big data’ captured using RTUs allows accurate monitoring of emissions. In Asia, TBox RTU technology monitors diesel generator systems 24/7, providing emissions data to a central reporting location. The centralized data can be accessed by the wider community through an Air Quality Index app on smart devices as a means of keeping their energy providers in check. In addition, the RTU’s monitor the generator health, by tracking exhaust temperatures, heater exchange throughput and oil quality as part of proactive maintenance measures. Monitoring fuel use also benefits efficiency management and deters fuel theft.
Can RTU’s act autonomously?
RTU’s can respond immediately to any identified problems before the information leaves the asset. Unlike sensors, which are a valuable source of information, it is the RTU that completes the loop of “See, Decide, Act”. Here, the RTU acts as the site co-ordinator and maintains a full history of events. This means operators have a better understanding of asset condition at all times, both in the present and historically.
Conclusion
As the world’s population grows through to 2050, RTUs will play a more prominent role in making sure these megacities work efficiently. Even now, the world’s largest cities are growing at phenomenal rates and it won’t be long before they reach capacity, although RTU’s are already routinely deployed. In simple terms, unless we embrace technology, these vast urban conurbations are liable to grind to a halt.
For more information on Ovarro, visit: www.ovarro.com
