DC Water

DC Water treats water and wastewater for 1.6 million people in the District of Columbia, as well as for neighboring counties in Maryland and Virginia. The company has the largest facility of its kind in the world, treating an average of nearly 290 million gallons per day, with a peak capacity of nearly 1 billion gallons per day. By operating one of the largest water utilities, it’s no surprise that a strong HMI/SCADA system is a non-negotiable requirement.

DC Water relies on the AVEVA System Platform running on a Stratus Edge Computing platform for secure, real-time automation, operations, and control of its water pumping stations, storage facilities, sewage pumping stations, stormwater pumping stations, and fabridams on the Potomac River. To provide continuous service on a massive scale, DC Water deployed a novel fault-tolerant Edge Computing architecture built on four Stratus ftServers spread across multiple locations to run their sophisticated SCADA systems.

Karen Green - SCADA Manager

“In our line of work, we need responsive support, and Stratus’s engineers are right alongside us on every issue. Even if it’s a non-urgent issue, they will call me to follow up until the issue is resolved. They’re very responsive and diligent — and that’s just what we want.”

Challenges

  • Deploy SCADA applications on resilient, fault-tolerant platform
  • Provide reliable automated instrumentation for dozens of sites and facilities throughout the DC Water system
  • Create real-time data for analysis and executive/ regulatory reporting

Solutions

  • Stratus ftServer deployed in the control center
  • AVEVA System Platform, InTouch, and Historian
  • Rockwell PLC
  • Schneider Electric PLC

Benefits

  • Reduced system failover time for entire network to two minutes (90% less)
  • Enabled fast access to timely data for KPI analysis and regulatory reporting
  • No system downtime in six years, resulting in uninterrupted water supply to 1.6 million consumers