Pump monitoring and CCTV brought together
08/02/2023
South Holland IDB (SHIDB) has upgraded its telemetry, rolling out a new Lee-Dickens hosted Sitewatch telemetry system to 20 regional pump stations.
The IDB opted for the Sitewatch Anywhere cloud-based remote control and monitoring solution, providing all the benefits of a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system over the internet, with the additional advantage of integrated CCTV.
At the heart of the monitoring system is the Midi8 remote terminal unit (RTU), designed and manufactured by Lee-Dickens. With the Midi8, remote controls can be monitored and operated via physical I/O, as well as connecting serially to pump station programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
For sluices and remote water levels where no power or phone lines are available, the micro remote terminal unit with the solar pack option has been used. The pole mount assembly kept the mechanical footprint small and simplified the installation process. The solar pack technology provided a low-cost, environmentally friendly power source for both RTU and water-level sensors.
South Holland IDB has recently made further investment in the telemetry by introducing Sitewatch integrated CCTV to its key sites. Sitewatch provides a ‘one-click’ link to high-definition colour CCTV video streams of each pump station site.
The integrated CCTV system complements the Sitewatch remote control and monitoring application by enabling staff to check the status of pumping stations and plant equipment. Being able to check the surrounding environment assists with health and safety. It enables the IDB to check that pumping station personnel or members of the public are not at risk before operating the remote controls.
To date, SHIDB has found that the benefits of its integrated CCTV have included:
- Pump station and depot security
- Personnel health and safety
- Monitoring of lone working
- Monitoring of the status of pump station sites and plant assets
- Checking the environment before operating remote controls
- Providing visual feedback following remote operation of pumps and weed screens
- Checking the status of local control panel indication.
The CCTV system is securely accessed over the internet using the pumping station’s ADSL/ISDN lines. A 4G wireless router option was offered for sites without phone lines. Both require a fixed IP (public IP address).
Those key pumping stations have a four-channel hybrid (five-in-one) high-definition digital video recorder (DVR), providing connections to both fixed and pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) cameras. The 1 TB hard drive specified provides weeks of locally archived video footage that can be accessed and saved locally or remotely across the internet.
The cameras are colour high-definition 1080P: with auto focus and day and night vision. As a cost-saving exercise, the IDB chose to utilise the CCTV system’s Patrol Mode. This enables a single PTZ camera to follow a pre-set tour as opposed to multiple fixed camera installations. The PTZ cameras’ programmed tour can be overridden to enable manual control, reverting back to automated operation after a period of inactivity.
