Water and sewerage services are storm-season ready on the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay in Queensland thanks to Unitywater’s sophisticated new network monitoring system.
The SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) allows Unitywater’s 1000 sites across 5700 square kilometres to be connected and remotely controlled at its Operations Centre in Maroochydore, Queensland.
Unitywater’s Executive Manager Infrastructure Services, Glen Babington, said the $50 million SCADA system had been a complex and challenging project that brought together 11 different legacy systems, but the severe storm that recently lashed Brisbane and southern parts of Moreton Bay proved the system is invaluable.
With the weather bureau forecasting a high chance of more storms, Mr Babington said the upgrades to the system would again prove to be an important investment in minimising services disruptions caused by storms and power outages.
“Power failures during storms can effect the operation of sewerage and water pump stations but with SCADA we can now minimise the risk of sewage overflows. During last week’s storm activity there were no sewage overflows at our sites.”
“Through SCADA we are able to prioritise the deployment of portable generators and maintenance crews to sites and, ultimately, we are able to reduce any inconvenience to our customers,’’ he said.
Unitywater provides water supply and sewerage services to 16 per cent of Queensland’s population which is the one of the fastest growing regions in the country.
The population is expected to grow from 731,000 this year to more than 1.04 million by 2031. To cater for this growth, Unitywater is investing $680 million in water supply and sewage infrastructure over the next five years.
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