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| ABB helps optimize Berlin’s water supply ABB Group has automated the entire water supply system of the German capital and enabled the municipal water authority to reduce operating staff and forecast consumer demand by the hour. The wide area network (WAN) water management system monitors and controls nine waterworks, 900 groundwater wells, seven pumping stations and some 7, 700 kilometers of pipeline in three different pressure zones – a vast system that supplies the city’s 3.4 million population with some 550, 000 cubic meters of water a day. The customer, the municipal water authority Berliner Wasserbetriebe, contracted ABB to design a distributed control system that would increase its earnings by reducing staff, optimizing energy consumption, and improving the management and reliability of the water supply system. The solution provides real-time visualization of the entire network and allows operators to perform online and offline simulation and use historical and real-time data to forecast demand 24 hours in advance. Wells, waterworks and pumping stations are controlled by remote from a central control room to eliminate the need for onsite manning. This has had a significant impact on operating costs, reducing staff from about 160 to 100 and enabling the customer to make substantial savings in annual expenditure. The quality of the drinking water has also been secured by greater process transparency, made possible by the real-time exchange of data between waterworks. ABB was founded in 1988 following the merger of ASEA of Västerås, Sweden and BBC Brown Boveri Ltd of Baden, Switzerland. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Construction News :: home page |