The Many Faces Of SCADA

By Christopher Little

For over a decade, utilities have turned to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems to monitor and control their remote infrastructure. Originally, SCADA systems simply eliminated the need for personnel to visit remote sites in order to manually operate equipment and record levels. Over time, the perceived value of SCADA began to shift. Users focused more on using tools like trends and reports to mine historical data to discover issues and opportunities for efficiency. In this article, operators and integrators for the City of Summerside, PEI, discuss how they applied the benefits of SCADA to their emergency generators, wastewater treatment plant, potable water system, and wind turbine farm.