SCADA Platform Evaluation and Selection
Encina Wastewater Authority
Customer Background
The Encina Wastewater Authority (EWA) is a public agency located in Carlsbad, California. EWA provides wastewater treatment services to more than 400,000 residents in northwestern San Diego County. EWA’s facilities and services are essential for protecting the local ocean environment, preserving public health, and providing recycled water resources for the region. Enterprise Automation has provided sole-sourced automation and integration services to EWA since 2017 as part of a five-year professional services agreement.
Project Background
The Authority’s original SCADA system consisted of four separate HMIs that were originally installed in the 1990s. Over the course of nearly 20 years, they were updated on a piecemeal basis with no standards or consistent approach to design, development, or testing. EA’s first project as their on-call systems integrator was to complete a SCADA evaluation to help the Authority select a new SCADA platform that was scalable, easy to maintain, and met their specific needs.
EA Solutions
The evaluation process started by developing a list of several PLC and HMI platform combinations to consider. The options were sourced from EWA staff vendor preferences, existing products used on-site, and products that EA had significant experience with. Those platforms were evaluated based on three criteria: hardware and software cost (both initial and recurring), integration cost (both initial and recurring), and system performance and risk management features, which were tailored to EWA’s needs through hours of joint workshops and investigations.
EA leveraged decades of experience to evaluate each product’s real-world capabilities, not just marketing literature, which the Authority found invaluable. The rank-ordered results were presented to EWA, who then chose Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Hybrid DCS system.
Key Insights
- Customized SCADA Evaluation for Encina’s specific needs
Key Technologies:
- Ecostruxure Hybrid DCS
- Citect SCADA
- Wonderware
- VTScada
- Allen-Bradley ControlLogix
- Modicon M580
Project Metrics:
- EA’s Services Value: $100k
- Project Length: 4 months
