PIPELINES, UTILITIES REVEAL SCADA PLANS

Natural-gas pipelines and utilities plan to install 159 complete supervisory, control, and data acquisition (scada) systems for the 30-month period begun in October 1990. These companies also plan installation of 90 remote-terminal units (RTUs) on existing scada systems. The companies project total value of these 249 projects at $156.8 million. These figures are based on research conducted by CSR Inc., Roseville, Calif., which maintains a data base on 1,300 gas utilities and 700 pipeline

March 18, 1991

2 min read

Natural-gas pipelines and utilities plan to install 159 complete supervisory, control, and data acquisition (scada) systems for the 30-month period begun in October 1990.

These companies also plan installation of 90 remote-terminal units (RTUs) on existing scada systems.

The companies project total value of these 249 projects at $156.8 million.

These figures are based on research conducted by CSR Inc., Roseville, Calif., which maintains a data base on 1,300 gas utilities and 700 pipeline companies.

All gas utilities and pipeline companies are contacted periodically, CSR says, to determine the status of existing scada systems and plans for new systems or enhancements, additions, or replacements of existing systems.

Scada systems are computerized hardware and software systems that perform a set of monitoring and control functions. in gas utilities, these systems perform functions normally associated with gas transmission and distribution as well as production plant process control.

In gas and oil pipelines, the systems perform these functions as well as such specialized functions as batch tracking, leak detection, and gas load flow.

RTUs measure parameters at remote sites and transmit those data to a central computer for monitoring and control functions. Programmable logic controllers perform as RTUs but also perform local logging and control functions, thereby reducing the requirements on the central processing unit.

BUDGET CLASSES

The total figure is down from CSR's 1989 survey which projected 361 total system and RTU projects for the 30-month period beginning October 1989.

In its 1990 study, CSR notes that total budgets for the various types of projects include $128.7 million for the 159 scada-systems projects; $28.1 million for 90 projects to add RTUS; $1.6 million for 24 map-board projects; $855,000 for 17 consulting projects; and $13.3 million for 66 communications projects.

Fig. 1 shows how the total budget for the 159 scada-system projects is divided. Eleven projects have budgets exceeding $3 million each and combined budgets of $62.9 million; 20 of $1-3 million each with combined of $32.3 million; 27 of $500,000-1 million and combined of $16.2 million; 29 between $250,000 and $500,000 and combined of $9.8 million; 23 of $125,000-250,000 with combined of $4 million; and 49 of less than $125,000 with combined of $3.5 million.