Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management, has been awarded a multi-million pound contract to deliver a new regional telemetry system to United Utilities.
The telemetry system will gather real-time data from thousands of remote assets, to enable the water firm to safely and efficiently manage its regional operations. It will form a fundamental part of the company’s Strategic Telemetry Replacement (STS) programme that will address the business requirements for control and management of their operational water and wastewater assets for the next 15 to 20 years.
In particular, the emphasis is on moving water and wastewater operational processes towards mobile working, placing increasing reliance on access to operational information. This requires a system that is reliable, has a high availability and is secure.
The telemetry system will gather data from a range of assets, including reservoir and borehole levels and water quality readings to pump, valve and plant status, covering both the clean and wastewater network. This information is processed and made available to the operational control rooms and key stakeholders, enabling United Utilities to ensure that its plant is running cost effectively and to its designed performance, saving energy wherever possible.
Schneider Electric’s ClearSCADA package will form the heart of the new STS system and will seamlessly integrate with United Utilities’ existing and future corporate IT environments to optimise the management of their network assets. The contract includes delivery of the new STS system, migration of existing telemetry assets, SCADA expert services, a framework for supply of WITS-DNP3 next generation T4e RTUs and up to eight years of annual support from Schneider Electric.
Dave Ogden, Head of MCA at United Utilities said:
"We are making this investment as part of our overall strategy to improve our network infrastructure. By ensuring our telemetry system is best-in-class, we will have much more visibility over the network, enabling us to run it at its most efficient level and provide a great end to end service to our seven million customers."
Barrie Cressey, General Manager for WWW UK & Ireland for Schneider Electric, said:
"It enables United Utilities to prepare for the future, as ClearSCADA provides a sophisticated IT level integration tool and modern replacement for its previous ageing legacy system."
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