The Coachella Valley Water District, Livermore-Amador Valley Water Management Agency, the city of San Clemente, and the Eastern Municipal Water District are in different stages of procurement and testing of replacement systems.
The Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD) created a SCADA Master Plan to guide “the upgrade and replacement of critical SCADA infrastructure assets to current industry standards, in order to assure reliable and sustained performance of critical CVWD services, and dependable quality and responsiveness to its stakeholders, including customers, vendors, other cities and government entities,” according to Luis Maciel, the district’s Information Systems director.
The upgrade will cost about $21 million over six years, and the district is in its second year of implementation, which includes the design phase and hiring integration firm Northern Digital.
The district recently purchased Wonderware to replace the previous proprietary legacy system. The system also uses GE PLCs.
CVWD’s plan includes the following 11 goals:
- Selection and Implementation of new SCADA software
- Replacement of SCADA computer hardware
- Upgrade of SCADA network switching and routing
- Upgrade of current SCADA control room facilities
- Addition of redundant control room facilities
- Upgrade of wide-area communications to increase bandwidth and resiliency, particularly by eliminating single points of failure
- Improvement of security and compliance with current cybersecurity best practices
- Replace proprietary and legacy industrial automation devices
- Develop integration with asset management and geographical information systems
- Improve reporting
- Expand systemwide measurement and analysis capabilities
The Dublin-San Ramon Services District started about six years ago with a SCADA Master Plan that “basically was a strategic plan to where we want to be in five years,” Senior Electrical Engineer Maurice Atendido told Techwire.
The district is in the warranty phase, testing the replacement hardware and software. The field controllers are Allen-Bradley and the software is Studio 5000, which was all integrated by ArcSine and supported by Glenmount Global Solutions.
A big step in this project was moving “away from serial communications to ethernet communications,” Atendido said.
San Clemente is replacing its water reclamation system as the third step in the city’s infrastructure modernization. The water SCADA replacement cost about $700,000, and the sewer SCADA replacement cost about $800,000, according to project consultant Mike Fakhar.
This portion will cost about $1.4 million and will be built on a Wonderware system, which the city also uses for the other two systems.
The reclamation system will be built with Allen-Bradley PLCs.
The RFP closes Feb. 15; all vendors who plan to bid were required to attend a pre-bid meeting. Vendors can still subcontract under the primary vendor.
The Eastern Municipal Water District cited security as a high priority for all SCADA systems.
