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Company to install multimillion-rand control and instrumentation system

GANSBAAI WASTEWATER TREATMENT 

Royal HaskoningDHV aims to have the Nereda system installed at wastewater treatment plants in the country to enhance efficient plant operation

GANSBAAI WASTEWATER TREATMENT Royal HaskoningDHV aims to have the Nereda system installed at wastewater treatment plants in the country to enhance efficient plant operation

14th March 2014

By: Mia Breytenbach

Creamer Media Deputy Editor: Features

  

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Consulting and environment engineering company Royal HaskoningDHV (RHDHV) will design and install a control and instrumentation system, estimated at R35-million, at the 149-million-litre Tshele Hills oil storage facility in Kgatleng, Botswana, this year.

“RHDHV will start detail design of the Distributed Control System and the Safety Instrumented System on the project this month and expects to start the construction and installation of the systems in November,” RHDHV control and instrumentation associate Selvan Murugan tells Engineering News.

Control and instrumentation challenges for the Tshele Hills project include completion of the safety assessment before construction starts, Murugan says, explaining that the mechanical components for the systems, which may have an effect on safety factors, will be purchased after design has started and would then need to be suitably integrated into the overall control system. Therefore, RHDHV will need to make a few key design assumptions upfront during the design stage.


Additional Focus

Another focus for the company this year includes the promotion of its Nereda decision support solution (DSS) system, which is a sustainable and cost-effective biological wastewater treatment technology for industrial and domestic wastewater works.
The Nereda system, initially developed for wastewater treatments in the Netherlands, is a server-based system that derives its input from existing programmable logic controller (PLC) and supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) systems, Murugan says, adding that it performs a supervisory role and makes decisions on flow rates, dosing rates and settling times.

The system was launched in South Africa about two years ago, with the first system installed at the Gansbaai wastewater treatment works, in Cape Town, in 2009.

Advantages of the system include lower energy consumption; better quality control; lower capital cost; off-site control of processes; higher quality standards of effluent produced, which is in line with international best practice; reduced maintenance; and excellent reliability.

Murugan adds that RHDHV does not foresee any challenges in distributing the system, as installation and implementation are quite simple and well understood.

“RHDHV aims to have the Nereda system installed at most wastewater treatment plants in the country, as it is a niche product with cutting- edge technology. The company is confident that it will guarantee an improvement in the purification process of wastewater treatment,” says Murugan.


Global Trends

Meanwhile, RHDHV notes an increase in new technical developments in the global industry worldwide, with demand for wireless and soft-sensor instrumentation, as the wireless technology assists instrumentation installation in outlying areas where cable use is problematic, Murugan notes.

He adds that there is increasing demand for programmable automation controllers and mini DCS systems, as well as a shift from traditional and separate PLC and Scada environments to converged systems, with single database solutions.

“There is a convergence of the PLC and Scada systems in the global industry, which is perfect – from a user’s perspective, these systems require less maintenance, and from a project’s perspective, the systems are developed faster and plant start-ups are achieved in shorter timeframes,” says Murugan.

Although South Africa is aligned to global trends as far as local, larger manufacturers are concerned, developments concerning the PLC and Scada systems are not occurring in the local industry yet, as there is still demand for traditional instrumentation and system offering, he points out.

“This effect is purely driven by the lack of available skills within the market to understand the benefits of new technology and to successfully implement it within the local industry. The lack of automation systems management in the Southern African region is currently frighteningly high,” Murugan explains.


Challenges

Key challenges in the instrumentation and control sector include inadequate maintenance skills of municipal employees and those employed in critical infrastructure works; insufficient control and instrumentation management and roadmapping skills; and reduced project management skills, says Murugan.
Another challenge includes the lack of under- standing among engineering fraternities of the differences between the control and instrumentation, and the electronics services market. This challenge can be resolved by establishing better definitions of the different sectors, he adds.

In addition, he points out the lack of a South African standards body that regulates control and instrumentation standards and specifications, especially safety standards.

“The industry has the South African National Standards (SANS) authority, which regulates electrical standards, but the industry needs a control and instrumentation regulatory body,” stresses Murugan.

He notes that the Society for Automation, Instrumentation and Measurement and SANS are currently in discussions to introduce such a regulatory body.

To reduce these challenges, Murugan suggests focusing on increasing education levels and introducing a formal certification for control and instrumentation practitioners, as there is currently no local official qualification for these practitioners.

“The need for control and instrumentation skills is significant, as a control and instrumentation practitioner can, for example, tune a single loop and save a refinery tens of millions of rands,” Murugan explains, adding that by improving and maintaining the entire facility, the same professional can ensure major plant operations savings in terms of cost, equipment reliability and availability.

“The control and instrumentation engineering profession requires regeneration within the country, as most of the ‘baby-boomers’, who have control and instrumentation knowledge, have retired. Failure of regeneration will result in a skills gap that is unacceptable to a country that is reviving its manufacturing and mining sectors,” he concludes.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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