Washington County Conservancy District and St. George Water Services Department
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- FreeWave HT-Plus Ethernet Radios
- FreeWave RGRIO Radios
- FreeWave FGR Series Radios
Tech Stack
- SCADA System
- ModBus Protocol
- TCP/IP Ports
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
- Networks & Connectivity - Wireless Local Area Network
- Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software
Applicable Industries
- Utilities
- Cities & Municipalities
Applicable Functions
- Facility Management
- Maintenance
Use Cases
- Remote Asset Management
- Water Utility Management
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- System Integration
- Hardware Design & Engineering Services
About The Customer
Washington County Water Conservancy District (WCWCD) is a non-profit public agency established in 1962 to manage Washington County’s water needs. WCWCD is responsible for reservoirs, pipelines, wells, water storage tanks, treatment plants, hydropower plants, and diversion dams located inside the district. Most of WCWCD water is sold at wholesale to the cities within the district. St. George is one of the cities that purchases water from WCWCD. The mission for the St. George Water Services Department is to effectively and efficiently manage and optimize the complete water cycle for the city of St. George.
The Challenge
St. George Water Services Department needed to collect reliable and accurate data from hundreds of I/O points scattered throughout a large and diverse topographical area. They identified that upgrading to a SCADA system would cover a wider area and provide a better overall network capable of transferring data in real time. The first issue was the protocol for transmitting data from one point to another. In the context of wireless M2M data communication, a network protocol is a formal set of rules, conventions, and data structures that govern how computers and other devices exchange information over a network. The 'backbone' is typically a wireless M2M communications technology to allow for many data items to be transmitted bi-directionally at the same time.
The Solution
The St. George Water Services Department utilized FreeWave’s HT-Plus Ethernet spread spectrum radios for the core of their wireless M2M communications network. To minimize cost without sacrificing performance, the city designed a system using FreeWave’s cost-effective RGRIO and FGR series radios to handle single and low I/O data points using the ModBus protocol. These satellite cells were coupled together through a network of HT-Plus Ethernet radios to the Main Control PC that graphically displays the data and logs the important points at predetermined intervals. The HT-Plus radios have two serial ports that allow ‘back links’ for the serial data radios, enabling them to send data without converting it to an Ethernet protocol. The city also used PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) at control points and configured those PLCs to communicate through serial ports to ModBus devices using the FGR radios, before connecting to the backbone through TCP/IP ports.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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