Newsletter March 2005

Recent Projects

Powerco SCADA screens

Before Christmas many customers would have been aware that Leonie was unavailable for support calls. This was because she undertook to project manage
a large project for Powerco that required 100% of her time along with that of two other Engineers.

The project was to create nearly 350 new SCADA screens (tiles) that could display the feeders (11kV distribution lines) and all of the unautomated assets on those lines i.e. reclosers, ABSs, transformers, etc. This would allow the Control Room Operators to make changes to the network configuration and use the SCADA system to record those changes in the network configuration.

This required new Powerlink software with increased I/O capacity, the creation
of a database for each new I/O point and unique screens for each segment of
the network. This has been the single largest screen development project we have ever undertaken and delivered in a tight timeframe. We’d like to thank all of our customers for their patience during this time.

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GSM SMS Evacuation system for Contact Energy - Wairakei

Late last year Contact Energy approached us wanting to install an Evacuation system for staff working at the Wairakei Power Station. Wairakei is a geothermal plant located in the central North Island of New Zealand in a highly volcanic area 15km north of Taupo. The site comprises a number of borefields feeding the power station which is located on the banks of the Waikato river. Large quantities of condensate are separated from the steam at the bores and the area is subjected to high levels of Hydrogen Sulfide gas. This can be damaging to electronic equipment if it is not suitably protected.

The requirements were simple. Staff can be spread anywhere about the site out of regular contact with their colleagues and it was these staff that management wanted to be in contact with if an evacuation was ordered. The Operators must be able to hit a button on the Plant SCADA system computer screen which immediately sends an SMS message to the phones of various staff members, ordering the evacuation of the site. As a backup a panic button is also wired to carry out the same function, so that the system is not solely reliant on the SCADA HMI to be operated.

Contact Energy already uses Abbey Systems RTUs extensively in the borefield for the control and monitoring of valves at the bores. These were installed in 1989 and are still in service. The Powerlink Telemetry Server has over the years been upgraded and now updates an iFix HMI via OPC Client /Server interface. It was
a simple matter to add a GSM modem to the Powerlink Telemetry Server for
this task. The Evacuation System uses Powerlink’s existing “Pager Groups” which can contain the names of over 160 different contacts and a driver for the modem.

Trials after installation proved successful with one of the greatest benefits being that off site staff were also notified of the evacuation. For little additional investment Contact Energy have been able to extract added benefits from their existing Powerlink SCADA system.

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Queenstown lakes DC installs ethernet TOPCAT rtus

Lakes Contract Services have recently installed ethernet connected Topcat RTUs and an ethernet Powerlink RTU into their water & wastewater communications network for critical site communications diversity.

Queenstown Lakes District is subject to extreme weather conditions which
can impact on radio communications around the district, especially during
winter months.

To counter this Mr Les Collins recently had three ethernet connected Topcat RTUs and one Powerlink RTU installed to provide an alternative communications path to critical water pumping sites. These communicate back to the Powerlink SCADA Master via “Countrynet” and supplement the existing VHF radio communications network installed.

“Countrynet” is a broadband service supplied by Russell Watson of Datek Systems Ltd. Russ’s service covers the Glenorchy, Queenstown, Wanaka area and is an RF engineering solution based on Cisco wireless and Linux based routers. You can contact Russ on (03) 441 0013.

For Topcat RTU pricing please call us or
email sales@abbey.co.nz

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WebAlarm Interest in WebAlarm is running high. Recent orders from Hastings District Council and Wellington Water Management Ltd (t.a. Capacity) are confirmation that customers are looking for increased operational productivity from their SCADA system assets. Hastings DC will use the Treo600/Palm OS handset on the Vodafone network while Wellington has chosen to use iPAQ 6365 Pocket PC on the Telecom network.

The Harrier, which is similar to the iPAQ6365 was recently successfully tested on this system and it uses Pocket PC Operating System. Telecom have also recently launched the Treo650 for use on their network. This new phone features removable battery, increased screen resolution and bluetooth connectivity. Return to top^

SCADA Master PCs

Several customers have recently taken delivery of new SCADA Master PCs. Eastland Networks (Gisborne), Hastings District Council and Waipa Networks
(Te Awamutu) have recently replaced or are about to replace their SCADA PCs
with new machines. These three customers all use our Hot Standby Backup system which swaps from the SCADA Master to the Backup automatically in
the event of a failure of the Master PC.

SCADA Master PCs are now shipping with Windows XPPro Operating System as Win2000 is no longer available.

We do recommend SCADA Masters are replaced every 3 years, as in this time the PC will have done three times the work of an average desktop PC and invariably there will be upgrades or new versions of the operating system and Powerlink SCADA software.

Our current PC of choice is the HP DC7100 and we are now quoting them with
17" LCD screens standard.

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NEL Upgrades substation RTUs in Nelson

We’re pleased to announce an order from Nelson Electricity for the replacement
of seven Datran RTUs at Distribution Substations around Nelson City. These RTUs will be replaced with our Topcat RTUs which, in addition to discrete I/O, have serial capability for use with future protection relays, metering or Circuit Breakers.

Mike Braden, Operations Manager says “Abbey Systems supplied and installed
a new Powerlink SCADA System for us last year at Haven Road and the replacement of the Datran RTUs was always the second stage of the project.”

The new Topcat RTUs will use radio to communicate with the Powerlink
SCADA Master.

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New Time Sync Module

Abbey Systems is pleased to announce that a new version of the popular Powerlink Time Sync module is under development. We launched the original version back
in Feb 2001 and many have been supplied for Electrical Substation timing in New Zealand & Australia. The updated version is based on the Motorola’s new Oncore Receiver and uses a housing specifically designed for stationary siting. We add
the PSU and outputs for our market needs.
Outputs: 1pps, ? hr reset pulse, IRIG-B unmodulated
Time zones: UTC, NZ std, NZDLS, Aust Eastern std, Aust DLS times
We expect to ship the new product during next quarter.
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Training

Next Powerlink training courses will be held at our factory in the beginning of
May 2005.

First registrations are in. To secure your place just email cathy@abbey.co.nz with the course name, names and number of attendees along with your order number. We have two new demo pump stations under construction for these courses. They will be fitted with the Swampfox Pump Station Controller for Water and Wastewater operators to train on.

(Abbey Systems reserve the right to postpone or cancel the course dependant on enrolled numbers)

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WEB SITE

Over the Christmas period we set about updating this website. The last one was created over 6 years ago and web design has evolved since then. The new site has a cleaner look, contains a lot more product detail and features additional directories for case studies, published papers on SCADA topics and historical news items.

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TELECOM PACNET

Many of our customers are using Telecom’s PACNET service to send alarm messages to their pagers. Telecom announced some time back that it will not guarantee to repair faults on the X.25 Network (read PACNET) from the end
of 2006. Some customers have already experienced unacceptable outages
with the service.

There are several options available:

		Send alarms to pagers - reconfigure Powerlink to move from PACNET
		Send alarms to Telecom 027 phones. - replace pagers with Telecom 027 phones. Text messages can be sent to an 027 phone from the “Pagers Groups”
		Send Alarms to a combination of pagers/027 phones - our Powerlink Advanced Paging module allows alarms to be sent to either pagers and/or Telecom 027 phones
		Send Alarms to Telecom 027/Vodafone 021/pagers - by installing a CDMA or GSM modem and Powerlink SMS software, alarms can be sent to any combination of handsets. The alarms can also be acknowledged from the handset removing them from the alarm queue. We recommend using a single cellular provider

Call us to discuss your preferences

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