Porta Westfalica, Germany Modernization of the sewage treatment plant
About 40 employees operate two large sewage treatment plants, Möllbergen and Nammen, as well as 20 pumping stations, nine reservoirs and twelve storm water overflow chambers every day.
The completely biological Möllbergen sewage treatment plant collects waste water from four southern parts of the city, about 12 000 inhabitants, of Porta Westfalica.
The application
In the course of modernization, the ventilation technology, prepurification, sludge draining systems, and electrical and automation technology in the Möllbergen sewage treatment plant have been renewed. This includes remote monitoring of the substations and a direct connection between the automation and the SAP system as the basis for a runtime-dependent maintenance.
Both sewage treatment plants can be operated and monitored in the control room via the Microsoft-based multitasking process control system. Apart from the open PLS Aucoprovis from Aucotec, it was also important for the operators to use a bus system that is based on open interfaces.
Here, due to the good experience with INTERBUS ST modules in the sister sewage treatment plant Nammen, only the INTERBUS fieldbus system came into question.
Solution
This solution was then extended to include two modern, decentral PLCs of type ILC 200 IB and corresponding Inline I/O modules.
Analog and digital signals such as the current consumption values for units, pH values, temperature, and oxygen content are looped in and transmitted to the control system via INTERBUS.
One control system of type ILC is installed directly in the sewage treatment plant and another is installed in a remote pumping station, which is connected to the control room via an analog telephone line.
The Acron Connect software enables open remote control solution here.
Summary
Open programming interfaces and a flexible solution in which everything is compatible make the systems independent, thus ensuring future safety in the Porta Westfalica sewage treatment plant.