Anglian Water - Rutland Refill

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Business Challenges

230,000 cubic meters of water are extracted from Rutland Water daily, so an equal amount has to be extracted from the feeding rivers. Rutland Water is refilled from local rivers, the River Nene and the River Welland, using automated abstraction methods. Like all water companies Anglian Water is under increasing pressure to operate as efficiently as possible; alongside commercial pressures there are important environmental issues influencing the way it operates.

Water is no longer a commodity that can be taken for granted and operations need to adapt to reflect this. The old automated abstraction systems on these two feeding rivers were dated and unable to provide the flexible and efficiency required by Anglian Water. To comply with regulatory requirements, achieve flexibility and improved abstraction efficiency Anglian Water decided to invest in a new control system for both rivers.

How We Helped

Capula was selected by Anglian Water to supply, install and commission a new control system to manage the extraction of water from the two rivers feeding Rutland Water. The new system not only provides improved extraction efficiency, it also offers greater flexibility in the volume and frequency of abstraction, enabling Anglian Water to operate in a more environmentally sensitive way.

Included in the project were 4 pumping/abstraction stations and a reservoir level control. Each pumping station has between 5 and 11 large pumps with both fixed speed and variable speed in duty/ standby and assist modes. The 4 stations, reservoir and main treatment works are linked via telemetry units to provide complete control of the water abstraction, delivery, reserve and quality.

The control system was supplied in two phases. Phase one included the supply and installation of hardware and software to control the original pumping scheme, replacing the original MM2 outstations with MM4 outstations and ControlLogix PLCs. Phase two provided the additional software to control one new, smaller duty, variable speed pump at each of the four locations. Energy saving control enhancements were also implemented during the second phase.

The pumping systems are controlled via PLCs and supervised by the SCADA system. Flow, level, pressure and quality transmitters give a continuous indication at the HMI and the offsite SCADA. The pumping regime includes complex demand and flow calculations, safety shut down system, trim adjustments, level control, an energy saving scheme and full PID speed control. The outstations monitor alarms, flow
integration, pump starting and abstraction rates.

All alarm conditions are displayed at the onsite HMI and the offsite SCADA system with critical alarms transmitted via telemetry. The status of all main network valves within the pump house are also displayed at the HMI/SCADA. All analogue input signals are scaled into appropriate engineering units.