SAGE Automation and Melbourne Water have won at the Victorian 2018 Australian Water Awards for their internet of things (IoT) monitoring solution.
The solution won the Infrastructure Project category which had more than 30 other entrants from across the state. The other finalist was John Holland and Goulburn-Murray Water.
The Internet of Things (IoT) solution enabled Melbourne Water to monitor previously unmonitored low-lying sites at low cost and with rapid deployment.
“This is true IoT in practice,” SAGE project manager Stephen Coward said. “One of the sites had hardware supplied, configured and installed within 24-hours, illustrating how quickly this cloud-based infrastructure can be used.”
Melbourne Water achieved remote monitoring of more than 70 below ground and low-lying assets using SAGE’s cloud-based Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) service called “STRATUS”. SAGE connected some 70 energy-efficient field monitoring devices to STRATUS using via a 3G/4G, Sigfox and LoRa networks.
“The project needed to select, test and implement low cost monitoring hardware that would not require mains power, would connect to the clients’ existing IT infrastructure and if possible, roll out within a reasonable time frame and at a lower cost,” Coward said. “Normally this would take considerable time.”
“But by harnessing STRATUS, Melbourne Water and (now other clients) are achieving monitoring without the costs associated with upgrading or building a new SCADA platform,” Coward said.
The benefits for Melbourne Water include increased visibility of its sites for improved customer experience, environmental management and reduced capital expenditure.
SAGE Group CEO Adrian Fahey said the project is just one demonstration of how the IoT is enabling clients to achieve more with less – and more quickly.
“STRATUS presents new improvement opportunities in asset management such as real-time remote alarming and monitoring, intelligent water metering, or preventative maintenance driven by trend data,” Fahey said.
“Industry 4.0 represents an opportunity for the water industry to decrease lifetime maintenance costs, improve environmental response times, improve community services and communication, and ensure consistent water supply to remote and urban areas through monitoring.”
The IOT monitoring solution will now go to the AWAs national awards to be announced in May 2019.