Affordable Telemetry for the South Holland Area of Lincolnshire
Client - South Holland District Council
Despite increasing financial constraints, South Holland District Council were able to afford a much needed telemetry system through a special financing arrangement with a major contractor.
The district of South Holland in Lincolnshire is bounded by Boston to the north, South Kesteven to the west, and by the counties of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire in the south. Much of the district is reclaimed fenland providing an area rich in agriculture which boasts some of the largest horticultural firms in the country. The flat nature of the landscape combined with high water table levels presents a real challenge for the Engineering Section of South Holland District Council.
For several years South Holland has used remote supervision and control to monitor activity at its waste water pumping stations and treatment works. The use of telemetry replaces manual monitoring of water and sewage levels, treatment processes, intruders and faults in equipment. The old system inherited from Anglian Water Authority, which worked on the AM radio waveband was rather archaic and proving to be expensive with increasing maintenance and escalating numbers of false alarms. The system couldn't be extended any further and spare parts had become obsolete.
In view of tightening legislation around pollution and the number of additional sites planned for the future (24 over the next five years), South Holland recognised the need for a new telemetry system and appointed their consultants Johnston Smith Consulting Ltd. of Worcester, to examine alternatives, project savings and produce an appropriate specification. Careful analysis of past costs by Johnston Smith Consulting revealed a potential saving of £30-£35,000 per year across the 49 sites. Competitive tenders were then proposed to be sought from major contractors in the field, for the new telemetry system. This was then scheduled in conjunction with an overall programme of capital investment. However, just as telemetry manufacturers were invited to tender, the capital programme was reduced, so Johnston Smith Consulting asked suppliers to submit tenders for supplying the system, but on a lease based scheme.
Motherwell Information Systems, (part of the Motherwell Bridge Group), were able to offer a telemetry system under an operating lease agreement which South Holland will finance directly from the savings in maintenance and running costs.
In its decision, the council based its calculations not only on the bids themselves, but on the long-term cost of ownership of the system. One system utilising the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) initially appeared to be the cheaper option, but was calculated to be £18,000 per year more expensive than the radio based Motherwell Information Systems offer when running costs and upgrades were considered.
Capitalising on their previous experience, Motherwell Information Systems were able to propose a system which provides the latest technology at an affordable price whilst ensuring the system is capable of expansion in the future. As each part operates in its own right, future upgrades will take advantage of new technologies in specialist areas making them more cost effective than large and complex system design.
The telemetry scheme at South Holland uses de-regulated radio to acquire data from 49 Horizon outstations. De-regulated radio offers the advantage of significant savings in the cost of owning regulated licenses for each site.
The information gathered by the outstations is routed back to South Holland District Council Offices in the market town of Spalding in Lincolnshire and displayed on the screen of the Datacentre masterstation. As well as data acquisition, the Datacentre automatically alerts off-site engineers out of hours using spoken messages sent over normal phone lines or mobile phones. Speechcentre, the Verbal User Interface (VUI) also maintains a staff rota and can be configured to alert managers when the alarm is of a particular severity level.
One of the many features of the Datacentre system is data archiving and trend analysis, which has proved invaluable to South Holland in planning future maintenance. With the old system, routine maintenance checks were carried out on a fortnightly basis. During these visits, the maintenance contractor would check the operation of pumps and flows, clean down wet wells, electrics, chain drives and motors and ensure the effluent is of a certain standard. With the new system installed, when the maintenance contract was renewed in April, South Holland were able to reduce the number of visits to one every three months whilst actually increasing the effectiveness of overall supervision.
The benefits of the savings made due to the new telemetry scheme are reflected in the rents paid by council tenants, as well as increased capital expenditure on new waste water treatment sites. Andy Wharff, Drainage Engineer at the Housing & Planning Services Department explains, "We've minimised the number of call-outs, whilst reducing the cost of routine maintenance, and within the first three months the system was installed we were able to see the financial benefits."
For the future, South Holland see a gradual expansion with the addition of 4 or 5 sites per year. Andy Wharff comments, "Obviously the capacities of the system are far-reaching and we intend to utilise it to its best ability. We are considering the possibility of conducting seminars to introduce the idea of telemetry to other local authorities in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. We are all in the same geographical area so we have similar problems."
Clearly the overall package specified by Johnston Smith Consulting and supplied by Motherwell Information Systems has met the needs of South Holland District Council by being affordable, expandable and capable of absorbing new technology and ever changing demands.
For further impartial advice on any problems associated with all types of sewage and effluent treatment contact Johnston Smith Consulting - The Independent Specialists.