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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wonderware Software Reduces Waste and Justifies Investment for Calabria Water Resources

For over 30 years, Società Risorse Idriche Calabresi (So.Ri.Cal.) has supplied drinking water to the people in the Calabria Region of Italy. The agency is responsible for a far-reaching system that covers approximately 6,000 kilometers and is comprised of 200 aqueduct systems, four dams, 10 derivation crossbars, 14 wastewater plants, 300 lifting stations and almost 1,000 tanks. In this region, water conservation is emphasized, but the challenge is compounded by the mountainous geography of Calabria and the remote location of much of the system.

 

 

Recognizing a substantial opportunity to reduce waste and improve efficiency, So.Ri.Cal organized a new department to tackle the project. The goal was to create a pilot system that would incorporate innovative remote control and automated solutions to optimize water production and better conserve this precious resource. From the beginning, the strategy was focused on finding the most efficient way to manage and unify this complex aqueduct system. The best solution would be flexible; it would prove itself in the pilot and then scale to the larger operation, which is divided into three macro-areas and ten different management areas.

 

With Wonderware, So.Ri.Cal. found a flexible, open and scalable software platform. They chose the software because it provides comprehensive capabilities, plus great investment protection. Not only is Wonderware known for its ease of use, but its independent, open platform will allow So.Ri.Cal. to expand by integrating any hardware, control systems and automation products on the market.

 

So.Ri.Cal. now has precise, real-time data on the lifting and supply network. They can manage events in the field and guarantee water and energy savings. With the great success of the pilot program, the Wonderware solution will be implemented across the entire system. 

 

"By the end of the test phase, the Wonderware solution will provide immediate ROI and justify our investment."
- Sergio De Marco, General Director, Società Risorse Idriche Calabresi 

 

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

Managing Road Infrastructure in Italy

Tecnositaf, a SITAF S.p.A. company, is an integrated engineering company based in Italy that designs, develops and manages systems and tools for mobility control, road, rail and industrial safety. Invensys and Tecnositaf experience and technologies were combined to ensure maximum safety for drivers along Italy's A32 Torino-Bardonecchia motorway infrastructure, a major road connecting Italy to France.
 

 

 When traveling on a motorway, drivers are particularly concerned with traffic and road conditions, but their safety depends on an almost invisible technology infrastructure that needs to always be working. In order to ensure safety, improve service levels and limit maintenance costs, SITAF (Società Italiana Traforo Autostradale del Fréjus), as contractor, invested in the expansion of the technology infrastructure. Influencing the decision was the fact that 18 of the 73 kms are tunnels, a potentially hazardous environment for vehicles and a place where rescue interventions are extremely difficult.

Constant event monitoring and automated management systems were key requirements. Invensys Wonderware System Platform and InTouch HMI (Human Machine Interface) represented the ideal solution for supervising the entire road section. The solution is particularly innovative, as it allows SITAF the freedom of customizing the application in order to develop all the necessary controls, as well as to reach the expected integration level, all while providing a reliable solution.

“We invested in the deployment of the most modern systems available on the market today, developing solutions enabling us to go far beyond international standards.” –  Giuseppe Celia Magno, Sales and Quality Manager, Tecnositaf

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

City of Bremen, Germany, Cuts Energy Consumption and Consolidates Building Management

When the City of Bremen needed to modernize the heating systems in several of its buildings, it analyzed the project and realized an opportunity. Besides improving energy efficiency, there was the potential to implement a new building management system (BMS) that would bring greater control and provide far-reaching positive effects across the city’s extensive portfolio of properties – more than 1,200 municipal facilities covering over 1.8 million square meters (nearly 20 million square feet) of floor space. At the time, six control stations across the city were running a variety of proprietary building control systems, making reporting and sharing of information in a consistent format a challenge, and adding new buildings complicated and costly.

Timelapse Video of a Smart City at Night

The city of Barcelona, Spain, has been mentioned a few times on this blog. In fact, we kicked off the blog last December with a post about Invensys' participation at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress held there. That major international event will be held in Barcelona again this coming November, and Invensys will be there.

Midnight Barcelona is a stunning timelapse video by Pau García Laita that offers a fast, modern look at the city at night. According to the description on YouTube, more than 20,000 pictures were taken and five months of work required for the project. It is an impressive reminder of city dynamics, and in this case those of a city widely recognized as a leading smart city.

2013 World Airport Awards by Skytrax

Airports are a critical part of the transportation infrastructure. Last month, the 2013 World Airport Awards were announced by air transport rating organization, Skytrax Research of London, UK. The Airport Survey has operated since 1999, and this year it garnered 12.1 million airline passenger nominations, and included 395 airports worldwide. The survey evaluates 39 airport Service and Product key performance indicators - from check-in, arrivals, transfers, shopping, security and immigration through to departure at the gate. This year, Singapore Changi Airport came out on top as "The World's Best Airport." This is the fourth time the airport has achieved the top prize; it last claimed victory in 2010.

Managing Infrastructure Through One Platform ... Enabling the Cities of the Future

Touch magazine is a Microsoft industry publication covering public sector activity within the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region. It offers insight into advances being made by Microsoft and its partner ecosystem. The Spring 2013 issue's article "Urban Innovation" by Karen McCandless takes a look at the technology and innovation driving the development of cities of the future.