More Efficiency, More Water & Fewer Snowshoe Hikes
How did getting a Dorsett Controls InfoScan SCADA system help the water department in Bountiful, Utah? In every way possible, according to Jerry Wilson, Bountiful City Water Department Assistant Director…from the system’s ease and efficiency, to the energy cost savings, to the excellence of Dorsett’s service.
“It’s been awesome. We’ve been really pleased with it. How user friendly it is. Our level to work on it ourselves has been really great and Dorsett’s service compared to the other service providers we’ve had has been superior,” said Wilson.
To Connect: Wells, Reservoirs, Booster Stations, Water Treatment Plant & More
Bountiful’s water utility provides up to 6 million gallons of drinking water daily for nearly 40,000 people, served by over 11,000 service connections. Bountiful is in Utah, one of the driest states in the U.S., and has an aging water system infrastructure that the city is in the process of upgrading.
Their water treatment system includes 100-year-old reservoirs, plus booster stations and wells from the 1960s to 1990s. Most are in remote areas. The utility’s 26 facilities are spread over 13.5 square miles, with an elevation range between 4,500 and 6,000 feet. In the winter, some remote facilities are only accessible by snowshoe.
The Challenge: Cost-Effectively Upgrade an Old Control System
Bountiful’s old remote control system “was really rudimentary for today’s technology,” said Wilson. “It was controlled with 450 MHz radios, with starts and stops and very limited data on monitoring. And we had PLCs in all of the panels that were doing all of the controlling specifically at the locations, so that system was in need of an upgrade. The thing that I really didn’t like about it is you had to be a computer engineer to work on it and it was real glitchy.”
Plus, that control system’s provider offered minimal support. “If we called them after hours with questions, I couldn’t get through or they wouldn’t answer. And then if you didn’t call between 6:30 AM and 3:00 PM – forget about lunch, they turned their phones off at lunch – then you weren’t getting ahold of anybody, and it was just not great. They were nice guys and everything, but we were really unhappy with their level of service.”
Bountiful’s first attempt to upgrade their old control system was expensive. Plus, during the upgrade process, they had to monitor two SCADA systems at the same time – with some holes between the systems. They decided to ask for bids. Dorsett Controls gave a presentation. “And we were like, ‘Dang, that system looks awesome, especially compared to what we were using,’” said Wilson.
Even with about 20% of their sites already upgraded, switching completely over to a Dorsett Controls InfoScan SCADA system was also their most cost-effective choice. “We were thrilled honestly that Dorsett got the bid,” said Wilson.
The SCADA System Switch: From Complex to Clear & Easy
Choosing the Dorsett Controls InfoScan system meant that Bountiful was replacing a complex system with one that was much easier to use. “We saw how easy the MS-5 controllers were and how we could replace three or four PLCs with one card. Maybe two cards, but still the cards are easier to work on because you’ve got a screen… an interface where you can go through everything that’s connected to it and check the status,” said Wilson.
“Before, if you had a newer PLC, you got some status lights that if you put your glasses on and got a magnifying glass you could trace some wires and see what’s going on, or you’d have to dig up the drawings. But with InfoScan or with the MS-5 you can just go start scrolling through it. You can see what’s not working and scroll to that and you know: ‘Oh is it reading? Is it not? OK, it’s reading so is it a software or a hardware issue?’ It’s almost never InfoScan. It’s usually a hardware failure or a communication failure, which again isn’t a Dorsett problem. That’s a network thing. So, it’s been good.”
InfoScan SCADA Benefits: Efficiency, Energy Savings, Easy Upgrades & More
Thanks to their InfoScan SCADA system, all 26 Bountiful City water treatment system locations can now be accessed from one central location… or even by mobile phone or tablet. “We’ve got full control over everything. Just wherever we are, wherever we have Internet access. That’s been really great,” said Wilson.
Other benefits include:
Staff time savings. “We’re not having to go out and reset stuff all the time like we were before because we can reset it from SCADA. Being able to monitor it remotely has made it so that people don’t have to come in as often,” said Wilson.
Robust, reliable system. “We’re real pleased with how easy it is to maintain,” said Wilson. He specifically mentioned the reliability of the SCADA IO Universal Controller. “We’ve got two sites that are solar and they’re two of our most reliable sites. When everything else goes down because power goes out those two just stay online. Don’t have issues. Running on batteries. Happy as a clam.”
Easy upgrades. “I think the one of the biggest benefits has been the ease of adding things in and expanding it,” said Wilson. “I can come up with an idea for something and bounce it off Brandon (Bountiful’s Dorsett representative).”
Once the expansion materials arrive, “I can go set something up myself and Brandon can remotely start it up from wherever he is,” said Wilson. “And that’s a lot of fun.”
Automated reporting. “The data availability in the history is great,” said Wilson.
Security. “I know that the standards Dorsett has to live up to for federal level stuff are pretty robust. So, I’m not worried at all,” said Wilson.
Staff and service. “I really like everybody that I’ve dealt with at Dorsett. It’s been a real pleasure to work with everybody,” said Wilson. He also appreciates the 24/7 phone support and getting help “pretty much any hour.”
Training. Dorsett has been with Bountiful for training “every step of the way,” said Wilson. Dorsett also provides hands-on training during service calls.
More water, more efficiently. With their previous control system, some sites were difficult to manage effectively. Wilson mentioned one well that at full speed produced too much sand for the system. The InfoScan system’s automation and a variable frequency drive solved that, while letting Bountiful run the well 24/7.
“It would idle down to 300 gallons a minute when the system didn’t need it. And then when the system called, it would throttle up and do a higher amount. And because we weren’t starting and stopping it, we weren’t having to let it run to waste – and waste a ton of water and waste a ton of energy,” said Wilson.
The power cost savings due to the automation and the variable drive “paid for all of the upgrades and everything and the automation a couple times over,” said Wilson. Upgrading and automating another well that has a drinking fountain has paid for itself four times over in power cost savings, he added.
Better use of resources. The automated, effective use of all their facilities helps with water and energy conservation. In the spring, Bountiful can run their treatment plant at maximum flow significantly earlier than before, saving on pumping costs.
“Utilizing the surface water has made it so we don’t have to pump our wells as hard. And then being able to slow the drives down has made it so that we’re not pulling as much water out of the aquifer. We’re giving it a chance to recover by running things slower,” said Wilson.
Peace of mind. “I worry about communication failures or equipment failures, but SCADA isn’t on my list of things that keep me up,” said Wilson. He said it had been with their old system.
Upgrade Example: No More Snowshoe Treks to the Upper Well
After snowfalls, the well at the very top of the Bountiful water system is only accessible by snowshoes. So, before their InfoScan SCADA system upgrade, Bountiful didn’t use their upper well all the time. The well also needed equipment upgrades.
“We put in a variable frequency drive so that we could slow the motor down because when you run a motor at full speed and then use a valve to control the flow, that’s really inefficient,” said Wilson.
“We put in an automated valve that watches a pressure gauge. We want to make sure there’s 5 pounds of pressure that the pump is pushing against because at 5 pounds of pressure we know the pipe is full and the meter’s going to get an accurate read. And then we’ve got the variable frequency drive that’s currently running at 49 Hz and that’s really low. That’s because 60 Hz is max speed, so it’s running it real slow, which is saving us energy, which is saving us money. And it’s making it so that we can maximize the usage of this well,” said Wilson.
“Before, we had to go up and get a manual read on the flow meter and then start the motor and then use a hand wheel on a valve and watch the flow meter and get it to about where you wanted… and then just go and check on it every couple days to see if it was still running how much we wanted. Now we have complete control over it and complete monitoring,” said Wilson.
“We put in a heater. We were able to automate the heater up there, too,” said Wilson. “I can see what the temperature of the building is and adjust the thermostat from my office. And adding all that stuff into SCADA was super easy. Dorsett was able to get it to work perfectly really quickly.”
“I don’t have to go up there and check on it at all, because I trust the programming and the feedback I’m getting,” said Wilson. “Now I can run it during the winter. That source is available to me all the time now. I don’t have to go up and adjust anything. So, the only thing I have to really go up there for is to clean the spiders out.”
Reference: Jerry Wilson, Assistant Director, Bountiful City Water Department
Email: jerry@bountiful.gov
