SEMCO Energy Awards ABB Contract For SCADA System At Port Huron Gas Control Center
Bartlesville, OK - ABB Measurement & Analytics, the leading power and automation technology group, has won a contract to provide a new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system for the SEMCO ENERGY GAS COMPANY natural gas control center in Port Huron, Michigan. SEMCO is one of the top 50 gas companies in the United States, serving approximately 500,000 customers. The SCADAvantage system will be supplied by ABB's Totalflow product group.
The SCADA system is used by the gas controllers to monitor and regulate gas receipts from multiple interstate pipelines at SEMCO's city gate stations, and to ensure delivery of gas to residential, commercial and industrial users throughout their service territory. SEMCO selected ABB’s SCADAvantage system because of its competitive cost, and anticipated maintenance advantages over the lifecycle of the system. “We selected ABB because we were impressed by how SCADAvantage’s utilization of off-the-shelf software required little customization to meet all of our requirements, while being basic enough for our internal employees to maintain,” reflects Jim Larsen, SEMCO director of engineering services. “We wanted to avoid purchasing a system that required a high level of customization, which can add complexity to the initial implementation as well as future upgrades.”
SEMCO believes the technology behind the SCADAvantage system is the best fit for the local gas distribution market. “ABB’s standard daily nomination interface and gas schedule tracking were a perfect fit for SEMCO’s operational requirements,” said Larsen. “We found their system to be unique in that these features were part of the existing functionality of their system, rather than a custom application like many other systems.” “The ability to easily integrate our Geographical Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) was also a real plus,” said Larsen. “ABB showed us that they had the complete SCADA solution for a Local Distribution Company (LDC). All of us on the product evaluation and selection team believe ABB is staged to become the market leader. We wouldn’t be surprised to see them implement several major projects in the next couple of years.”
Ed Smyth, ABB Totalflow’s SCADA business development manager adds, “Though the SCADAvantage system has proven itself in hundreds of upstream gas applications, it has never been installed at a large LDC until now. More than two years ago, we made a strategic decision to invest in the development of applications unique to the LDC market. It is exciting to realize a return on those investments. We are gaining traction in the LDC market and believe there are significant opportunities in the near future.”
SOURCE: ABB Measurement & Analytics