I OT AND SCADA
THE CHALLENGES OF
REMOTE MONITORING OF ASSETS
Despite the challenges facing the remote monitoring of water utility assets, new Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provide economical and durable operational means of remote monitoring.
T
he fundamental challenges that hinder a water utility’s ability to monitor its assets are sparsity of infrastructure and inherent budget limitations. Many key functional devices in the treatment and distribution of both water and wastewater operate unsupervised. The outcome is a non-proactive approach to asset health and fault event management. For the utility, the result is felt in elevated maintenance costs, recurring plant failure replacements and frequent unwanted events such as overflow in the wastewater collection line. More broadly for the community, such breakdowns and events spell a significant impact to the state of the surrounding environment as well as the function of the water services they pay for. The continued emergence of low power IoT solutions, such as LoRaWAN, into the industrial sector gives operational teams a new means of remote monitoring of assets that is both cost effective and highly scalable. In recent years, Shoalhaven Water has developed a robust LoRaWAN architecture including a network of over 15 gateways covering the Local Government Area (LGA) from Berry in the North to Lake Tabourie in the South, as well as back-end data flows which include cloud access data analysis tools, such as Grafana and SCADA integration for real-time alarming. Shoalhaven Water continues to undertake innovative LoRaWAN-based remote monitoring projects to address sewer manhole blockage, Pressure Reducing Valve (PRV) pressure issues and smart rubbish bins. A significant challenge for Shoalhaven Water is managing overflow events in the sewer collection network caused by blockages or ‘choking’ in the pipeline. Choking may occur in both ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ scenarios, meaning it may be caused by an accumulation of debris in the pipe or excessive infiltration of water into the system during rain events. Of particular concern for Shoalhaven Water the coastal town of Culburra, whose protected bay hosts an important oyster growing trade. The sewer line that runs adjacent to the bay is prone to overflow, particularly in periods of heavy rain. An overflow into the river system incurs a mandatory shutdown of the local industry for three weeks.
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UTILITY • AUGUST 2022
MANHOLE SEWER FLOAT SWITCH
Additionally, such events are in breach of environmental regulations and naturally are of concern for the wellbeing of residents. The remote monitoring solution Shoalhaven Water employed is to hang a float switch in manholes of concern connected to a LoRaWAN device which relays data through a special antenna through the concrete lid of the manhole. The attendant is notified when the water level in the manhole reaches the height of the float switch indicating that a blockage issue may have occurred. The monitoring method is simple and cost effective, totalling around $350 per site. Integration of IoT data into the SCADA network enables real-time alerting via SMS and email. Shoalhaven Water is able to take a preventative, rather than reactive, approach to overflow management. Additional benefits - from an operational perspective include the capability to network interactions between assets along the line, building a holistic understanding of wastewater collection.
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