A future-proof SCADA system

摘要

The maintenance and upgrade of tailor-made SCADA systems pose increasing challenges for pipeline operators. Eduard van Loenert, Yokogawa Electric Corporation, the Netherlands, provides a vision on how to tackle such issues and address the sustainability challenges faced. Pipeline SCADA systems are at the heart of the pipeline operations management environment. Essentially, they consist of a core SCADA platform supplemented with specific gas and liquid applications that enable a pipeline operator to manage the delivery contracts and associated logistics in the most time and energy efficient manner. The core SCADA platform covers functions like monitoring, alarming, trending and reporting, whereas the pipeline specific applications handle functions such as metering, batch scheduling and tracking, leak detection and energy management. As such, a pipeline SCADA system is an essential element that can significantly increase profitability, provided it is well implemented.