Network Tasman is a customer trust-owned electricity distribution company whose principal activity is to distribute electricity to approximately 30,000 rural, residential, industrial and commercial customers.
Network Tasman's new system is based on Catapult iPower, a SCADA product designed specifically to meet the requirements of the electricity industry. Catapult iPower is developed on top of the world-leading Proficy HMI/SCADA - iFIX control system from GE Fanuc.
Murray Hendrickson, Network Manager at Network Tasman, discusses their decision to implement Catapult iPower...
"In an internationally contested tender, we selected iPower to replace our legacy SCADA master station. iPower enabled us to retain our older L&N RTUs and integrate these with our newer NuLec reclosers into a single SCADA solution."
Network
Catapult iPower and Proficy iFIX are Windows™ based, highly open and extensible solutions, incorporating all relevant industry standards, and delivering a ready environment for cross-business integration.
The new Catapult iPower SCADA system will communicate with existing Leeds & Northrup RTUs via a Foxboro DCIU using the 2025 protocol. Communications to new RTUs, and between iPower and the DCIU will be via DNP 3.0. The iPower master station will include dual main/hot standby computers, plus a redundancy system for iFIX systems.
Automated Load Management
The new SCADA also incorporates Catapult OnDemand fully automated electricity load prediction & control system. OnDemand automates management of load control channels to meet half-hourly load targets. OnDemand makes load predictions based on current and historic profiles, taking into account multiple determining factors such as day of the week and environmental conditions.
OnDemand supports multiple points of supply and operates within constraints of maximum instantaneous loads, guaranteed on and off times for channels controlled. A full event and audit trail of all decisions made and actions performed is maintained. OnDemand is closely integrated into the SCADA HMI. It is currently available for the following SCADA systems: iFIX; iPower, InTouch™, CiTect™, RealFlex™.
Customer Summary
| Location | New Zealand |
| Customers | 40,000 |
| Total I/O | 6,600 |
| Servers/Clients | Dual Servers/Clients in redundant automatic fail-over configuration. Each acts as a server as well as providing an Operator workstation with two monitors working as a single desktop. Separate Historian server. |
| Other Clients | Two read-only clients on corporate LAN, one remote operator client. |
| LAN | Dual redundant LAN, Router interface to corporate LAN |
| Software | Windows 2003 Server | iFIX 4.5 | iPower 4.5 |
| Additional Applications | Catapult OnDemand - automated load management |
| Communications & Remotes |
|
