Patti Engineering Helps Siemens Achieve Water/Wastewater Improvement

The City of Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas, has undertaken an infrastructure project to save energy and conserve water by investing in new, more energy-efficient technologies. Siemens Industry has called on Patti Engineering to help achieve the savings, switching the city’s water and wastewater management systems over from mostly manual to state-of-the-art automated systems connected with wireless Ethernet.

Patti Engineering will be designing and implementing a new SCADA system and HMIs to enable central control and management of equipment. Installation of the latest-generation Siemens PLCs on equipment at the city’s wells, lift stations and elevated storage tanks will ensure communications to the new SCADA system. Wireless communication will be established to replace auto-dialers, eliminating the high cost of phone lines.

The city’s 28 wells, seven lift stations and eight elevated storage tanks will wirelessly communicate information and alarming directly through the new user-friendly SCADA system to provide pertinent valve position, tank level, pressure and pump information on desktop and mobile devices in real time. Authorized city workers will have the ability to monitor and control the assets without having to spend hours driving around town to each station and tank.

“The proposed SCADA system will help the City of Fair Oaks Ranch save energy and operational cost associated with their water and wastewater infrastructure and backup power needs,” explained Chad Nobles, executive accounts, EES, Siemens Industry’s Infrastructure & Cities Sector. “Patti Engineering’s ability to create a flexible and cost-effective solution met our standards and criteria, as well as our customer’s.”

Siemens will also be replacing aging and inefficient water meters with automated meter reading (AMR) technology. The new automatic water meters will wirelessly transmit consumption data and allow the city to account for every customer’s daily usage, eliminating human error. The new meters will be more accurate and will streamline reading routines—freeing staff resources and reducing expenses associated with the manual reading of the city’s old meters.

Patti Engineering is a CSIA Certified control system integrator and a Siemens Automation Solution Partner. Partnering with Siemens, Patti Engineering can provide comprehensive water and wastewater infrastructure renovation and expansion solutions.