Framework builds towards UK's best water
18/04/2011 Mitsubishi Electric Europe
Yorkshire Water has signed a £6m, five-year framework agreement with Mitsubishi Electric that will help it achieve, maintain and supersede the Revised Bathing Water Directive - the gold standard for water quality.The agreement relates to the supply of PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) and HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces). These will be used in both new build and upgrade projects over the next five years.
Yorkshire has a massive investment programme in progress, including what it describes as large and super large projects in areas such as Blackburn Meadows, Acomb Landing and Calder Vale. The current plans go up to 2015, and investment is expected to continue well after that.
It has a unique water grid system which allows water to be moved around Yorkshire to where it's needed most. This includes more than 700 water and sewage treatment works and 120 reservoirs. These are interconnected by 40,000 miles of water and sewerage mains - enough pipework to circulate the earth and 3000 booster stations.
"Yorkshire Water's stated intention is 'to be clearly the best water company in the UK'," says Glen Henderson of Mitsubishi. "Given that it has five million customers and operates over most of Northern England, it is quite an ambition. So it's no wonder that they plan ahead long term. We've been working with them for at least 10 years; and with the new agreement, we are proud to be supporting them for the next 5 years."
One of the key objectives of the development strategy is to improve the remote intervention of distant unmanned sites through the grid's control system. The idea is to be able to control stations both individually and as a small group of sites working in concert to a far higher degree than is found in the UK water industry.
"We're using control solutions, such as batch handling, more usually found in the process industries for some of the projects. So if, for example, the Met office forecasts a downpour in one particular area, the correct pumping stations and reservoirs will be pre-emptively ramped up to cope."
The agreement covers all of Mitsubishi's PLC and HMI ranges. Glen says that the highly advanced Q series is destined to take the glory. Plant reliability is obviously a very high priority and the Q series offers an unbeatable combination of fault tolerance, versatility and value for money.
"Optimising operations within the massive Yorkshire grid is a complex control challenge but maintaining operations is the paramount concern," says Glen. "With so many very remote sites, it is essential that they are robust enough to carry on even in the worst winter weather. Fortunately Q series has proven its capabilities as a reliable controller for remote and harsh conditions."
"Recently, we have worked together with Yorkshire Water on a number of development projects, which utilise the flexibility and innovation of the Mitsubishi automation platform to explore and challenge some of the control methodologies that have existed in the water industry for many years."
For more information, please contact Chris Evans:
Mitsubishi Electric 01707 276100
Web: www.mitsubishi-automation.com
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