SunWater Pipeline Communications & Control System Upgrade
Gladstone, QLD
SUNWATER’S Awoonga-Callide Pipeline is located just south of Gladstone, Queensland and stretches approx 70km to the West. Owned and operated by SunWater, this pipeline supplies 20,000mL of water annually to the Callide Power Station.
In 2008, SunWater engaged Parasyn to provide the design for the upgrade of the control and communication system to ensure that the pipeline could continue to deliver water reliably into the future. The ultimate goal of the project was to upgrade the pipeline system with modern infrastructure and to significantly improve the control systems reliability in order to meet service level arrangements with the Callide power station.
Digital IP Radio technology, both private and public networks, were introduced to facilitate redundant wide area PLC control, which wasn’t possible with the existing technologies in use on the system, or even using traditional serial data radios. The IP platform design ensured uniform connectivity and interfaces with all intelligent network devices. The new technology delivers lower cost infrastructure and greater system availability not found in other area wide control systems.
A major project driver was the operational stability of the system, primarily managed by the PLC control systems. SunWater specified a preferred vendor, however Parasyn located a fundamental design flaw in the vendor’s system. They worked together to develop a firmware upgrade to the vendor’s PLC product range to support SunWater’s remote configuration requirements.
Without the thorough design validation, the product flaw would have prevented the successful implementation of the proposed communications and control system.