Intelligent control of the water distribution system in Alicante

Responsible entity

The Provincial Council of Alicante, through its Water Cycle Area, is responsible for characterizing the situation of provincial water resources and giving technical advice to local administrations, as well as building hydraulic infrastructures that provide service to municipalities, as befits the role of the Provincial Institution as “City Council of City Councils”.

https://ciclohidrico.com/ 

Water Cycle is an entity of the Provincial Administration constituted by officials specialized in the management and administration of the water cycle and its infrastructures.

Its objective is the preferential support to all the City Councils of the Province of Alicante and other Local Entities such as Consortiums, Associations, User Communities with municipal representation or Minor Entities, to whom it provides its services in order to ensure the effective development of the municipal water supply service in sufficient quantity and quality to improve the well-being of citizens, as well as the municipal sanitation service, and advising on the optimal management of the resource and hydraulic infrastructures.

Specifically, the remote control and management system of the Diputación de Alicante monitors in real time the hydraulic infrastructures of the province. The data is stored in the Provincial Water Database, which can be accessed from anywhere thanks to the Internet. Operating expenses are covered by the Provincial Council’s own budget.

Water policy at the provincial level is established around two fundamental objectives:

• The use of own water resources.
• The optimal management of the resource, both own and external, at the municipal and provincial level.

Detailed explanation

In 1993, the Telemetry and Control System of Water Resources and Hydraulic Infrastructures was initiated in order to obtain real-time information on the different parameters involved in the water cycle and its municipal management. The high-water cycle is managed by the SISCON IB software and a set of hardware that together make up the SISCON system.
SISCON is a data collection system with a presence in 107 municipalities. SISCON consists of three modules: the SICON IB module focuses on infrastructures and the high network, while the ModopENE module is applied in energy optimization. Both modules are useful tools for diagnosing, controlling and optimizing water drives and energy control. The third module, MapConta, allows the sectorization of the supply network.

The operation of SISCON can be divided into four phases:

1. Automatic data capture in remote installations, with more than 4,000 sensors, and storage in their internal memory
2. Transmission of data to the central computer by means of a communication medium via radio, on the mesh of repeater stations of the communications system “Trunking” of automatic sharing of resources and channels
3. Information processing in the flexible and simple environment of SISCON IB software
4. Updating and storage of data in the computers of the remote control room in the facilities of the Water Cycle Department. (P. Alfaro, 2004),

The system is oriented to provide real-time and quality information on variables (R. Hernández et al. 2017):

1. Hydrological: piezometry, hydrometry, exploitations…
2. Hydraulic supply infrastructures: Catchments, tanks, water treatment plants…

The system is flexible, it can transmit via analog, digital or telephone radio allowing the connection with a multitude of commercial automata.

These characteristics allow SISCON to join other systems and / or applications of the Provincial Council, such as the provincial hydrological information system, exporting data and information collected in the remote management system in high (Aguas de Alicante, s/f)

Warnings and alarms

Those responsible for hydrological management receive the different warnings and alarms via mail or SMS, so that you can consult or perform actions on a mobile device. This interface also displays warnings regarding:

1. Maximum and minimum flow rates
2. Evolution of the flow rate
3. High night flow
4. Fugue
5. Reagent dosing
6. Faults
7. Electrical parameters
8. Extraction: Depending on the continuity of the extraction, the state of the pump can be estimated.
9. Minimum maximum pressure
10. Complex notices; for example, low flow rates and low pressures are indicative of pump failures or drive leaks.

Remote reading

Remote reading is a technology that allows the remote reading of meters periodically, avoiding the displacement of qualified personnel to the meter (Ciclo hídrico, 2017)

Hay dos modelos básicos de telelectura, el walk-by y el de red fija. El modelo walk-by requiere un contador en cada casa que emite ondas de radio desde el contador. Posteriormenteel operario recoge las medidas con un dispositivo receptor “TPL” que las descarga a la base de datos. El modelo de red fija prescinde del operario que toma las lecturas, instalando repetidores que envían los datos directamente. Este sistema tiene la ventaja de poder monitorizar la actividad del contador en tiempo real. Actualmente (2017), la provincia de Alicante está transformando su modelo walk by al modelo de red fija (Diputación de Alicante, s/f).