Energy Efficiency among the World's Largest Economies

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) acts as a catalyst to advance energy efficiency policies, programs, technologies, investments, and behaviors. The group recently released its 2014 International Energy Efficiency Scorecard that includes analysis of 16 of the world’s largest economies that together represent more than 81% of global gross domestic product and 71% of global electricity consumption.

 

 

In considering overall energy efficiency, ACEEE used 31 policy and quantifiable performance metrics across four groupings: energy use at the national level as well as the three sectors primarily responsible for energy consumption – buildings, industry, and transportation.

 

The top rankings went to: 1st – Germany; 2nd – Italy; and 3rd – the European Union. The United States ranked 13th.

 

The 2014 International Energy Efficiency Scorecard website includes the complete report, executive summary, press release, and additional information.

Schneider Electric Announces the Creation in Barcelona of Its First Center of Excellence Focused on Smart Solutions for Cities

Rueil-Malmaison (France), July 24, 2014 – Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management, announced the creation in Barcelona (Spain) of its first Center of Excellence focused on smart solutions for cities. The announcement was made by Julio Rodriguez, Executive Vice-President Global Operations at Schneider Electric, during a ceremony in the presence of Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona, on July 22.

 

A view of the future Schneider Electric Center of Excellence in Barcelona

 

The mission of Schneider Electric’s Center of Excellence will be to gather the knowledge of the company on solutions for smart cities, thanks to the experience, the results and the successful Smart City solutions established worldwide. The center will offer solutions to the cities which will have economic and social impact, bringing concrete benefits for citizens. The work of the Center of Excellence will enable to guide and support the cities on their way towards a new paradigm in efficiency management, habitability and sustainability thanks to the implementation of smart solutions and the development of new business models.

 

“In the next 40 years we are going to experience an urban technological revolution. The ongoing concentration of the population towards urban cores and the growing shortage of resources will have important repercussions on mobility, air quality, healthcare service, etc., said Julio Rodríguez, Executive Vice-President Global Operations at Schneider Electric. Today Schneider Electric is working with over 200 cities in smart management projects. With this Center of Excellence we are enhancing our capacity to provide advanced solutions to the cities.”

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For more information, see the complete press release or visit the Schneider Electric Smart Cities webpage. Schneider Electric acquired Invensys in January.

Re-imagining Cities

The New Cities Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to making cities across the world more inclusive, dynamic and creative. Created in 2010, it seeks to incubate, promote and scale urban innovations through collaborative partnerships between government, business, academia and civil society. Schneider Electric is a Corporate Member of the New Cities Foundation.

The Foundation’s flagship event is the New Cities Summit which in past years has been held in Paris, France (2012) and São Paolo, Brazil (2013). New Cities Summit 2014 was held last month, attracting over 800 participants from 51 countries to Dallas, Texas, USA. This year, the Summit's theme was Re-imagining Cities: Transforming the 21st Century Metropolis, and nearly 100 speakers took part (event press release).

An event E-book (pdf, 7.5 MB) provides summaries of all sessions as well as links to related videos on the New Cities Foundation YouTube page, including these:

• Highlights (4:18)
• Keynote - Future Trends in the Century of Cities (13:44) - by Parag Khanna, Managing Partner Hybrid Reality
• Panel - Beyond the Smart City: Towards a New Paradigm (1:02:19) - panelists include Laurent Vernerey, Executive Vice-President, North America Operations at Schneider Electric

New ISO Standard Addresses City Performance Indicators

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced a new standard last week: ISO 37120:2014 – Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life. The new standard is applicable to any city, municipality or local government desiring to measure its performance in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size, location, or level of development. The standard covers a number of areas, only some of which are: energy, environment, governance, safety, solid waste, transportation, wastewater, and water and sanitation.

The standard was launched during the Global Cities Summit organized by the University of Toronto's Global City Indicators Facility, one of the organizations involved in its development. Also launched at the Global Cities Summit was the World Council on City Data, a new entity that will build an international platform for open, comparable, and ISO-standardized data for participating cities from around the world.

Municipal Financing Tools for Smart City Projects

The Smart Cities Council, an industry coalition to improve the livability, workability and sustainability of the world’s cities, recently announced the Smart Cities Financing Guide. This new resource helps cities understand the financing options available for investments in smart technologies. Developed for the Council by the Center for Urban Innovation at Arizona State University, the Financing Guide outlines 28 of the most promising financing tools for urban infrastructure enhancements, including some techniques that do not require any upfront money from a city. It “Knowledge of financial instruments and the processes to engage in sustainable financing of technologies is vital, yet few know how to navigate these complexities”offers criteria for evaluating financing options and allows city leaders to differentiate which approach is best for their project and community.
 

The Financing Guide is part of the Council’s premium resource library, which also includes the Smart Cities Readiness Guide that provides 27 best practices for launching a smart city initiative. Both Guides are available on the Smart Cities Council website for free, following a very brief registration.

Schneider Electric, which acquired Invensys in January 2014, is an Associate Partner of the Smart Cities Council.

Enhancing Driver Safety and Maintenance on Italy's A12 Motorway with Wonderware Software

Italy’s A12 motorway takes drivers from Genoa through Tuscany and then on to Rome. It's a beautiful region, and the road challenges drivers with high speeds, hilly terrain, 24 tunnels, and more than 45 miles of “B-class mountain” roads. Società Autostrada Ligure Toscana p.a., or S.A.L.T., is responsible for managing the A12. With the primary goals of improving safety, reducing energy use and lowering overall maintenance costs, S.A.L.T. uses Wonderware® software for remote monitoring and control.

“Adopting an industry grade automation solution was the first step to the successful implementation of a project characterized by a large number of controls, and mostly, by the need to guarantee uninterrupted operation.”
– Eraldo Benedetto, Automation Manager, Giordano & C. S.p.A.

Lighting & Ventilation – With 24 tunnels, lighting is critical to driver safety. Proper levels of visibility must be assured in relation to current weather conditions and time of day. Critical lighting processes are automated and controlled using Wonderware System Platform. Proper ventilation is also essential, as concentrations of exhaust gas can quickly build up in busy tunnels, reducing visibility and making air unbreathable. With Wonderware software applications, operators can determine the proper air extraction direction according to environmental conditions outside the tunnel, enabling efficient removal of noxious fumes.

Emergencies – In case of emergencies, the control room operator in charge of launching rescue operations is informed about current events through a highly intuitive alarm system. High-resolution graphics provided by Wonderware InTouch® HMI deliver clear visualization on the operator panel of any system failure or issues on the roadway such as a car crash, enabling the operator to immediately summon skilled workers or rescue squads.

Maintenance – All equipment, from lamps to fans, is monitored remotely from the control room in Viareggio, where two redundant servers store data collected via Wonderware Historian. Using a dedicated optical fiber link, information is collected by PLCs that supervise the operation of each system locally. This provides control room staff with critical information on the condition of any piece of equipment in real time.

The ability of the S.A.L.T. team to remotely control the entire system using Wonderware technology has been key to successfully managing this complex motorway system. Wonderware industrial applications have enabled the real-time management of intricate activities, especially under emergency conditions.

For more information, read the success story or visit our Transportation Industry page or Wonderware Software page on software.invensys.com.

Energy Efficiency Opportunities in U.S. Cities

The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) is the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. According to usmayors.org, there are 1,393 such cities in the U.S. today.

During their 82nd Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C., in January, the USMC unveiled the results of a survey in which nearly 300 cities provided data about how they are deploying energy technologies to make their city operations and communities more energy efficient. The full report is available – Energy Efficiency and Technologies in America’s Cities – as is a related press release.

 

 

Among a number of key findings, the report lists the following areas currently targeted by cities for energy efficiency, along with the percent of cities reporting each; up to three responses per city were possible: 

• Public Buildings (83%)
• Outdoor Lighting (54%)
• Wastewater Treatment (21%)
• Water Supply (20%)
• Traffic Management on Roads (16%)
• Public Transit (16%)
• …

Wonderware software solutions help smart cities better manage their infrastructure operations, including their energy efficiency, across diverse applications like facility/building management, water and wastewater, and transportation.

Take a Quick Tour of the Smart City Council's Readiness Guide

The Smart Cities Council is an industry coalition that seeks to accelerate the growth of smart cities worldwide. It does this by providing city leaders with access to technology counsel, financial tools, policy frameworks, visibility campaigns, and advocacy. The Council currently includes more than two dozen leading smart city practitioners and an extensive collection of independent advisors. A short video introducing the Smart Cities Council is available here (< 4 min). Invensys joined the Council as an Associate Partner last year, and we recently renewed our partnership, this time as Schneider Electric who acquired Invensys in January 2014.

The first comprehensive, vendor-neutral smart city handbook for city leaders and planners - the Smart Cities Readiness Guide - was developed by the Council. The Guide enables city leaders to assess their current state of technology and its readiness to become a smart city. The 281-page document is available for free download on the Smart City Council's website.

The Council has now released a Readiness Guide "Quick Tour" that highlights in just 13 pages how cities around the world are enhancing operations and improving citizen services with the implementation of smart technologies and how the Readiness Guide helps. The document includes at a high level what a smart city is, the smart city framework, what technology is used and what problems it can solve, the power of smart integration, how smart cities change the game, and how to get started - creating a smart city roadmap. It concludes with answers to a number of frequently asked questions about the Readiness Guide.

To learn more, download the Quick Tour.

Managing Facility Operations for 140 Buildings Across Multiple Campuses at the University of Strasbourg in France

The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France, is among Europe’s foremost research universities and is the second-largest university in France with some 43,000 students. The University’s Energy Department needed to better manage facility operations for 140 buildings on multiple campuses spread across 60 miles of Strasbourg and the surrounding area. No centralized method existed for monitoring and collecting data on assets, HVAC, electricity and other facility processes that would allow staff to review trends and identify better practices for saving time, money and energy.

 

 

"Wonderware System Platform enables the University’s Energy Department to successfully manage operations at our 140 buildings by accurately processing technical data in real-time for assessment. We can now more effectively manage University assets and operations ensuring the comfort of our students, educators, staff and visitors each day."
– Damien Bertrand, Energy Department Manager, University of Strasbourg

 

The search for an open, scalable supervisory control and monitoring system led them to Wonderware® System Platform which provided extensive capabilities and met the University’s need for a solution that collects and manages data from all building systems and assets, and that easily integrated with the University’s existing asset data management program. System Platform efficiently centralizes data gathering and enables extensive data analysis to improve overall asset and energy efficiencies at the University’s distributed campus buildings – everything is built and managed within the same software infrastructure.

Wonderware System Platform also features one of the industry’s most powerful data historian applications, Wonderware Historian, which provides Energy Department staff actionable information with rich data analysis and reporting capabilities. And there is Wonderware InTouch®, an open, extensible supervisory human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solution that provides user-friendly views of the University’s building control systems to staff and management from any location in real-time.

For more information, read the success story or visit our Smart Cities Industry page on software.invensys.com.

Wonderware Software Helps AENA Manage Operations at Barcelona El Prat Airport

The gateway to the beautiful city of Barcelona is the El Prat Airport. In a typical year, over 35 million passengers and 96 thousand tons of cargo pass through the airport. AENA is responsible for the operations of the Barcelona El Prat Airport. AENA is one of the world's top airport operators, in terms of the number of passengers handled. More than 200 million travelers pass through AENA's 46 domestic and 15 international airports.

"Our systems allow us to be aware of what is going on in the airport infrastructures, and we manage the airport as an intelligent environment. The 'smart city' concept is very much in vogue nowadays. We can say without any doubt that the Barcelona airport is a smart airport - intelligent, able to manage its infrastructures and always self-aware."

– José Luis González, Director de Informática  

 

  

 

AENA's smart airport solution boasts a dynamic, intelligent infrastructure. The control environment for the airport management system handles over 1,000,000 signals. It includes the control of all escalators, elevators and passenger moving walkways; power management; air conditioning; and fire safety systems. It also involves monitoring support for the automated luggage transport system. This fully integrated, multi-hardware solution was made possible with the help of Wonderware.

Wonderware System Platform lets AENA manage a large number of processes in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform. It provides an easy-to-use, flexible and scalable solution that allows AENA to create control templates that can easily be deployed by any of its multiple system integrator contractors.

Today, Wonderware is being used in all 46 airports that AENA manages all over Spain.

For more information, watch the new video, read the success story, or visit our Smart Cities Industry page on software.invensys.com.

Invensys and Smart Cities: An Industrial-Strength Enabling Platform

Today, the Smart Cities Council posted an interview with Rob McGreevy, VP Platform and Applications, Software Solutions at Invensys (now part of Schneider Electric). Invensys is an Associate Partner of the Smart Cities Council. Read the full interview on the Council's website and learn more about what Invensys is doing in the Smart Cities area as Rob addresses these questions:

• Has the smart cities market hit the tipping point?
• Do we have the technology we need, or is there more to invent?
• Which technologies are core to a smart city?
• Are there ways to overcome the financing obstacle?
• What areas of the world are leading the way?
• How important is the smart cities market to Invensys?
• What is Invensys' role in the smart cities ecosystem?
• What does Invensys do better than any other company?
• Are there any misconceptions about Invensys and its smart city capabilities?
• What's next for Invensys?
• What is the single most important thing a city leader should do today to position his city for success?
• What's the right way for a city to get started?

You can also visit our new Invensys Software website for additional information about our Smart Cities software solutions.

Ensuring Efficient Water Distribution in Paris with Wonderware® InTouch® Software

Eau de Paris is the municipal authority in charge of the production and distribution of water in Paris and management of the city’s unique network of water pipelines and aqueduct structures. The water processed by Eau de Paris comes from 102 collection points situated to the west and south of Paris, with the furthest being more than 90 miles away, as well as from the Seine and Marne rivers. The ground water is treated in four plants, with two plants processing water from the rivers. The Eau de Paris central supervision station processes 20,000 variables of information from 120 local technical stations all over the city as well as from the Paris environs.

 

In 1995, Eau de Paris installed Wonderware InTouch to provide advanced visualization and monitoring of its vast network of water distribution pipelines. With Wonderware InTouch, Eau de Paris is able to easily and quickly create standardized, reusable visualization applications and deploy them across its entire enterprise. With unequaled device integration and connectivity to virtually every device and system within the city’s water system network, operators, administrators and management can more effectively assess data and increase productivity.

 

More recently, Eau de Paris decided to take advantage of the latest Wonderware InTouch upgrade and the changes included advanced video capabilities. The idea was to use detailed, large-dimension block diagrams of the installations that were created with AutoCAD and already in use by Eau de Paris. These AutoCAD diagrams were easily integrated with the Wonderware InTouch HMI, turning them into a powerful supervisory tool. The information displayed from InTouch on a large video wall includes the values of useful parameters for the control functionality, as well as other sources such as surveillance videos.

 

“InTouch provides our staff with ‘Hypervisory’ capabilities by animating the large blocks of diagrams from the HMI, and projects them onto our innovative operator management video wall. The displayed information provides details to effectively manage the city’s extensive water system.”

– Frank Montiel, Head of the Regulation - CTM project in the Information Systems Department, Eau de Paris

For more information, read the complete success story. Or, reference our collection of Wonderware Water & Wastewater Industry success stories.

Remotely Controlling Rail Station Operations in Spain with Invensys Wonderware Software

Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) is responsible for providing safe, reliable and efficient rail transportation to more than 80 million passengers each year. Operating two of the country’s major transport lines, Barcelona-Vallès and Llobregat-Anoia, FGC must manage not only 120 miles of track, but also the 76 train stations which service the businesses and residents in the region.

 

As a public company managed by the Catalan Regional Government, the mission of FGC is to operate these rail services and infrastructure efficiently and effectively. Based on these goals, the company began an extensive organizational and technological reform strategy to enhance the management of its overall operations.

 

The creation of the Station Monitoring Center, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, enabled FCG to manage the operation of all stations from a central location. Through the new remote-controlled model, the Center began overseeing the operations of everything related to a station such as ticket vending machines, CCTV, public address system, opening and closing of entrance doors, air conditioning, lighting, and numerous other functions.

 

Integrating all controlled operations into a single supervisory system through a common management interface was the next stage of the project. The Integrated Command Center was created for joint management of the two network Lines – Barcelona-Vallès and Llobregat-Anoia.

 

“The challenge we have set for ourselves as a company is one of excellence in customer service. Each year, we seek to achieve higher satisfaction levels from our users and Wonderware technology is an essential tool in achieving this.”

– Alicia Coca, Head of the Systems Development Department,

   Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya

 

For more information, read the complete success story. Or, reference our collection of Wonderware Transportation Industry success stories.

South Africa’s Eskom Centralizes Critical Power Generation Data with Invensys Wonderware Software

Eskom is responsible for generating and distributing approximately 95% of South Africa’s electricity. Operating power generation stations 365 days a year, 24-hours a day is no easy task, and when more than 50 million people are relying on one company to “keep the lights on,” that task can be daunting. That is unless they’ve employed state-of-the-art monitoring and automation systems. Eskom’s network of power plants required an integrated, reliable software solution to ensure its facilities were operating at peak performance and enabling access to critical plant data to those that needed it, anywhere, any time.

The Plant Data System (PDS) initiative was developed to centralize all plant management activities via a standardized software solution. Built on Invensys Wonderware® software, Eskom management, plant technicians and administrators now have access to real-time information to more effectively make operation and business decisions that directly affect service to customers, as well as the company’s bottom line. Plant data is openly accessible and in a standard format, enabling workers in every area of the business to access and use the real-time data collected from each of Eskom’s plants. Wonderware software is able to convert the collected data into useful information to meet the specific needs of personnel at different levels within the company. By providing refined performance indicators, Wonderware software provides better plant optimization and improved resource allocation. By accessing data in real time and directly sending operations data to plant engineers, Eskom has improved overall plant performance and improved its staff’s incident response capabilities.

Key to effectively accessing and evaluating plant data and operations information is standardizing on information technology systems using a single, integrated software platform. With Wonderware software, Eskom is able to comply with ISA-95, an international standard for the integration of enterprise and control systems.

“Wonderware software provides our engineering and management teams with access to usable data that before was not readily available. We can now make decisions in real-time on our electricity generation capabilities, enabling Eskom to continue to improve the quality of life of more than 50 million people.”
– John Viljoen, Corporate Consultant for Generation Business, Eskom Holdings Ltd.

For more information, including about the Eskom application of a variety of Wonderware software products – System Platform, InTouch®, Historian and Information Server – read the complete success story. Or, reference our collection of Wonderware Power Industry success stories.

Smart Cities Readiness Guide Advances Smart City Development with First-of-its-Kind Tool for City Leaders Around the World

Readiness Guide is the first vendor-neutral comprehensive roadmap for smart city development

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (November 18, 2013) The Smart Cities Council today released version 1.0 of the Smart Cities Council Readiness Guide, the first comprehensive, vendor-neutral smart city handbook for city leaders and planners. Designed with input from leading smart city and urban planning experts as well as top global technology companies, the Guide enables city leaders to assess their current state of technology and its readiness to become a smart city. It is available for free download at www.smartcitiescouncil.com/readinessguide.

The Guide was unveiled in Barcelona, Spain, the day before the Smart City Expo World Congress begins there, at a smart cities workshop and press announcement with the renowned ESADE Business School’s Institute of Public Governance and Management.

The Guide is a collection of guidelines, best practices and case studies. It helps a city create its own customized "wish list" with the confidence that it has not left out anything essential and that all the pieces will work together even if they are built in stages. The Guide outlines proven principles to follow in order to be successful and avoid pitfalls.

The Guide includes vendor-neutral technology recommendations on all eight of a city’s most important responsibilities: the built environment, energy, telecommunications, transportation, water and waste water, health and human services, public safety, and payments.

About the Smart Cities Council - The Smart Cities Council is comprised of the foremost companies in the smart technologies sector. Its goal is to accelerate the growth of smart cities worldwide by providing city leaders and urban planners with tools and resources, such as a Readiness Guide, financial guides, policy frameworks, and "mentoring" sessions. For more information, visit www.smartcitiescouncil.com.

Today's full Smart Cities Council press release is available here.

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Invensys is an Associate Partner in the Smart Cities Council. Invensys is participating again this year at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress in Barcelona, November 19-21, and is present in the Wonderware Spain stand (D421), our Wonderware software distributor, and also in the Microsoft stand (D415) as a Partner supporting their CityNext initiative. For more information about Invensys' Wonderware software solutions for smart cities, visit www.smartcitiessoftware.com.

Smart and Sustainable Spanish Ecocity Valdespartera Relies on Software Solution from Invensys Wonderware Spain

Ecocity Valdespartera is the first urban development project in Spain to be governed entirely by bioclimatic criteria in line with the objectives of environmental sustainability contained in the Kyoto Protocol. Creating a city where bioclimatic management was built into the project’s development meant that integrating and running all of the city’s facilities with a centralized IT system had to be considered. The system had to efficiently manage everything from the drinking water supply network, sewage and rainwater treatment network, watering systems and electricity and gas supplies, to street lighting, pneumatic waste collection and the housing and environmental control network. Wonderware® real-time operations management software from Invensys, in conjunction with Microsoft® Windows® and SQL Server®, was selected as the best solution for overall management and analysis of this unique urban environment.

“One of the key innovations of Valdespartera from a technology perspective is the comprehensiveness of the integrated management system. Many cities have experimented with ‘smart’ components, but here we have a highly advanced model. Valdespartera is a unique example of how the cities of the future can be designed using data to make intelligent decisions on a wide range of public services.” – Jordi Rey, managing director of Invensys Wonderware Spain

Learn more in this Microsoft Touch cover story or visit our Software Solutions for Smart Cities area on wonderware.com.

U.S. Cities Beta-test Smart Cities Council Readiness Guide

Earlier this month, the Smart Cities Council announced that leaders from a number of cities across the U.S. are evaluating a beta version of the Council’s Readiness Guide. The Readiness Guide is a how-to manual for building tomorrow’s cities today by enabling cities to self-assess their readiness to innovate. Mayors and their smart city teams from Hartford, Dallas, Baltimore, Orlando, and Green Bay have been evaluating the Guide’s usefulness to determine the next steps toward transformation. The Readiness Guide, created by the Smart Cities Council Advisory Board and Partners, offers a unique holistic view of a city’s future – including the built environment, energy, transportation, communications, water, health and human services, and public safety.

The Smart Cities Council will continue to work with city leaders across the U.S. to gain feedback, followed by Europe, Asia and Latin America. The Readiness Guide will be officially launched next month to cities worldwide at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

For more information, read the complete news release on www.smartcitiescouncil.com. Invensys is an Associate Partner of the Smart Cities Council.

Invensys Helps Dusseldorf Waterworks in Germany Reduce Costs, Optimize Control and Improve Reporting

Stadtwerke Dusseldorf, the public works department of the city of Dusseldorf, ensures that more than 600,000 people have ready access to water that is safe to drink. The department’s system carries about 55 million cubic meters of fresh water to households and businesses through a pipe system that extends more than 1,700 kilometers. Their water comes from the Rhine River via three plants throughout the region. In the 1990s, the beginning stage of automation was introduced when PLCs were installed in the three plants. However, these systems were not synchronized or coordinated, and no centralized data collection or archive was in place.

The department upgraded and now the three waterworks and the new control systems are interconnected, operating separately and redundantly. Each station runs Wonderware® InTouch® HMI (human machine interface) software in a multi-monitor setup to visually display the operations. With this HMI, engineers view real-time conditions with straightforward graphics, alarms and trending information. Another feature of the HMI is its extensive library of standardized and customizable templates and objects. This enabled Stadtwerke Dusseldorf to keep most of the implementation in house and easily make changes and updates, saving time and operating costs.

A separate server runs the Wonderware Historian database and collects process data. Conversion of the data to Microsoft® Excel® is handled on a workstation loaded with Wonderware Historian Client software. Now operators have the reports they need for hourly and daily evaluation of production data, including water quantities, electrical power and water quality. And reports on cost allocation are quickly generated and sent to city management. Plus they’re documenting their adherence to water rules and regulations, especially those pertaining to drinking water compliance.

"Now we are able to create all required reports analyses and documentation ourselves. We are no longer dependent on outside companies to provide us with that information."
– Matthias Rammler, Electrotechnical and System Support, City of Dusseldorf Public Works

Stadtwerke Dusseldorf has now fully automated their operations, reduced operating costs and enhanced safety. Plant availability is up and maintenance is improved. The system is simple to administer and reporting is flexible, so the right data is readily available for better analysis and decision making. And, since the system is built on an open platform known for flexibility and scalability, the city can look forward to meeting the needs of its customers into the future.

For more information, read the complete success story here and/or access any of our Wonderware Water & Wastewater Industry success stories.

Europe's Covenant of Mayors - Increasing Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Use

The Covenant of Mayors (CoM – www.covenantofmayors.eu) is the mainstream European movement involving local and regional authorities voluntarily committing to increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources in their territories. By their commitment, Covenant signatories aim to meet and exceed the European Union’s (EU’s) 20% CO₂ reduction objective by 2020. They prepare a Baseline Emission Inventory (BEI) and submit, within the year following their signature, a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) outlining the key actions they plan to undertake.

Signatory cities vary in size from small villages to large metropolitan areas like London and Paris. Over 3,000 SEAPs have been submitted to the European Commission, and that number is expected to increase as some 5,000 local authorities have now joined the Covenant of Mayors, representing over 170 million people or roughly one-third of the EU population (Covenant in Figures).

In a press release last month, the CoM referenced a recent study by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission noting CoM signatory cities release approximately eight tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per capita. However, through the implementation of their SEAPs, cities commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by about 28% by 2020, thus voluntary exceeding the EU’s 20% reduction objective. On average, 44% of the overall CO₂ reduction is expected to result from actions addressing the buildings sector (retrofitting of building stock, energy audits, etc.), 20% from the transport sector (introduction of cleaner vehicles, congestion charges, etc.) and 16%  from local energy production actions (production of biogas or solar energy, for instance).

AENA, Barcelona El Prat Airport

Wonderware Software Facilitates a Decade of Integration and Growth for Unprecedented Spanish Airport Expansion

Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (AENA) is a public company in charge of civil air navigation and airports in Spain. Its subsidiary, AENA Aeropuertos SA, manages 47 airports and two heliports in Spain and participates directly in the management of 28 other terminals throughout the world. In passenger count, AENA is the world’s leading airport operator with about 200 million passengers per year. 

The Barcelona El Prat Airport, together with the Port of Barcelona and the city’s Zona Franca area, serves as a vital hub for the region’s economy and is integral to tourism in the region. Recorded airport traffic in 2010 was 29,209,595 passengers, 277,832 operations and 104,280 tons of cargo.

To modernize the airport and prepare for future demands, major improvements to infrastructure and services have been made.

In 2000, 15 to 20 integrators were engaged in supporting the airport control systems. Each vendor implemented a separate solution, resulting in a multiplicity of technologies. The airport’s operators had to learn all of these different tools, which made it practically impossible for the facility to function smoothly.

Management searched the market for a solution. They wanted a control architecture that would provide:

• A single platform, to unite the control systems of the existing facilities and the future expansions
• Reliability, to support efficient and safe airport operations and avoid downtime in airport services
• Scalability, to handle the addition of a second large terminal building and integrate the annex buildings and other systems into one infrastructure
• Economy, to meet the budget restrictions of a public project

When considering their goals and plans for expansion, the choice for AENA was Wonderware software. It met management’s criteria, plus it offered the only non-proprietary solution, providing a better alternative to disparate systems and the high costs and operator challenges the airport had experienced in the past.

Today, the control environment of the airport is almost completely integrated, AENA is achieving operations excellence, and the Barcelona Airport boasts a dynamic, high-functioning infrastructure. According to the AENA team, the most outstanding benefit so far is that the solution enables them to manage a large number of processes in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform – even with so many devices and signals with distinct technological languages.

“The centralization of operations that we get with Wonderware helps manage around 700,000 signals and is essential for a critical infrastructure like this. We can now quickly respond to incidents and also be proactive in optimizing management.”
– Jordi Asensi, Head of Systems and Database Management, AENA Barcelona Airport

Once the full expansion is complete, nearly 1,000,000 signals will be controlled under the unified platform. With Wonderware technology and the vision and teamwork of numerous executives and integrators, the Barcelona Airport is one of the most emblematic projects for AENA to date, and AENA’s commitment to Wonderware software as their standard for handling the 47 airports they operate in Spain is stronger than ever.

For more information, read the complete AENA, Barcelona El Prat Airport success story and/or reference any of our Wonderware Transportation or Facilities Management success stories.