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End-user presentations at the ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida in 2017 provided convincing case stories on how emerging technologies, including IIoT and analytics, benefited users. When evaluating IIoT communications and security, the physical cable is often overlooked. Clarksville, Arkansas, a rapidly growing city with an estimated population of 9,524 in 2016, is spread out over 18.8 square miles. The presentations by John Lester, General Manager, Clarksville Light & Water (CLW) and by Dee Brown, PE, Principal, Brown Engineers provided insights for IIoT communications and security.
IIoT Communications Challenges
One of the challenges the municipal electric utility faced was that it did not have a SCADA system for managing the electric or wastewater utility systems (although one existed for the water utility). For data communications, CLW installed a 288-strand fiber optic network for the SCADA system that provides ample capacity for the present and should be adequate to accommodate other municipal services in the future. In July 2016, the water, wastewater, and electric utilities began using the fiber for business operations. Clarksville has begun exploring adding the public schools, hospital, and some local businesses.
Both reliability and cybersecurity were mission critical for the SCADA system. For a small community, this change was hard, since upgrading facilities costs money and the culture was risk averse – particularly for new IT. It chose fiber optic, because this media is difficult to penetrate mechanically for an unauthorized connection. The cable was configured in redundant rings for reliability. In addition to SCADA, the extra bandwidth became a community resource and an opportunity to add value to the community with additional services like internet, public safety, educational, and business.
IIoT Communications Benefits:
The recent implementation of this network holds promises for improved efficiency of the electric grid with the future layering of smart grid applications and proactive management that can reduce the loss factor. The projections indicate that the operational-related savings approach $423,000 per year. The approximately $1 million investment has a 2.5-year payback based on this operational efficiency improvement alone. Proposed internet services are expected to provide a new source of revenue.
The initial implementation preserved and connected legacy equipment and devices in the field. The operations and maintenance staff can now monitor status and make changes using mobile devices like their smartphones.
Lessons Learned:
The focus of the initial project was data communications for the SCADA systems (water, sewer, and electric departments) for controlling water production and distribution. This provided a vision for providing the citizens of Clarksville with a community resource for data communications. The SCADA system infrastructure of open architecture computer software with unlimited tags and licensing, cybersecure PLCs, and dedicated fiber network positions Clarksville for the future. Now that the foundation has been put in place, these features can be leveraged to improve operational performance and energy management with IIoT connectivity and analytics.
Videos of the presentations can be found here:
John Lester Video
Dee Brown Video
To learn what your peer organizations are doing in this area and participate in the discussion about digital transformation; asset performance management; and other IIoT-enabled solutions for industry, infrastructure, and smart cities, ARC invites you to join us at our upcoming ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 11-15, 2018.