SaskEnergy is a Crown-owned natural gas utility with a mandate to operate in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. The corporation serves more than 90 per cent of Saskatchewan through its 343,000 residential, farm, commercial and industrial customers in more than 500 communities. SaskEnergy and its transmission and storage subsidiary TransGas jointly manage 80,000 kilometers of distribution, gathering and transmission pipeline, with ties to supplier and delivery systems in Alberta, Manitoba and the United States. The TransGas network of deep underground storage caverns allow SaskEnergy to meet the peak winter load demands of Saskatchewan’s harsh climate, while allowing both the utility and its transportation customers to purchase gas when prices are low and ship in high demand periods, cushioning commercial and residential customers from seasonal price fluctuations.
“[Our SCADA system is] the company’s cash register by monitoring the amount of gas brought in from producers,” said Dean Hickey, an engineering technologist in TransGas’ Pipeline & Facility Automation group. In order to ensure accurate daily measurement real-time polling, TransGas has implemented monitoring solutions utilizing every applicable communications vehicle, including cellular.
TransGas has hundreds of metering, control and storage facilities located in highly remote locations, monitoring both gas quantity and quality. The company has stringent specifications for the solutions it implements for primary and backup data transmission, including temperature, intrinsic safety classifications and power consumption.
“We use cellular communication to monitor areas where we can’t quickly or easily install telephone or dedicated data lines,” explained Alan Yurkowski, supervisor of SCADA Communications in TransGas’ Pipeline & Facility Automation group. “In Saskatchewan you can’t run copper data lines between October and May – but work doesn’t stop just because there’s snow on the ground.”
“For us, reliable data management is a very important issue,” continued Yurkowski. “Our systems provide near-real-time measurement data to customer information systems, with some customers looking at our system on an hourly basis to decide how much gas to buy based on daily measurement values.”
Sierra Wireless AirLinkTM Solution
In order to achieve the redundancy and reliability required to provide accurate, real-time measurement data to its customers, TransGas has been implementing solutions based on Sierra Wireless AirLink cellular devices for a decade. Balancing reliability and cost, Sierra Wireless’ AirLink gateways allow TransGas to quickly implement a reliable communications solution anywhere cell coverage is available. This includes TransGas’ current migration from analog bag phones to the AirLink Raven XT.
AirLink Raven XT
The rugged design of the Raven XT, its compact form factor and its Class I Div 2 certification for use in hazardous conditions were key variables in TransGas’ device selection. TransGas requires its measurement packages, mostly located outdoors, to operate at temperatures down to -40 degrees Celsius. The company also has requirements for safe operation in hazardous environments, as well as low power requirements necessary for solar-powered metering systems common to combustible gas locations.
“AirLink products have historically been extremely reliable,” offered Yurkowski. “And where we have encountered problems, Sierra Wireless’ technical support team has worked hand-in-hand with us to identify and resolve them. In terms of power, the AirLink devices have the lowest power consumption of any platform we’ve tested.”
TransGas also requires strong remote management tools to simplify the provisioning, managing and troubleshooting of its remote equipment. The ACEware TM suite of tools and utilities provides these capabilities, enabling TransGas to monitor and control its network of wireless gateways from one central location. ACEware, coupled with ALEOSTM – the longstanding industry benchmark for reliable and feature-rich intelligence – ultimately lowers total cost of ownership (TCO) by virtually eliminating the need for field service to remote distribution point.
“We love that we can get diagnostic data off our equipment and apply patches without going into the field,” said Yurkowski. “New features on the Raven XT have the added benefit of allowing us to monitor the power supply to the radio. On solar powered sites, this will allow us to assess if the solar panel is failing or a battery is getting weak.”
TransGas uses ACEnetTM, an enterprise grade one-to-many remote management tool, to resolve network issues, such as remotely implementing required resets for specific network devices.
ACEnet also enables TransGas to schedule regular status checks on its equipment to check system health and proactively discover and report any tower communications issues.
“The AirLink products powered by ALEOS have been extremely good,” Yurkowski said. “With ACEnet, we are often able to identify problems before our network provider can; we usually call them to notify their support teams of network issues.”
Results
TransGas currently has Sierra Wireless AirLink cellular gateways deployed at 154 facilities throughout Saskatchewan.
“Cellular data provides flexibility in the solutions we have available,” concluded Yurkowski. “The ability to do things quickly with high reliability is critical.
Implementing a solution in a timely fashion is pretty difficult when you have to wait until spring to install it.”
“There’s also a lot of pressure for us not only to monitor the volume of gas but also gas quality,” added Hickey. “The industry is starting to get away from charging by volume and is instead charging by energy quality. For us to be able to access that information is critical.”
The Sierra Wireless AirLink intelligent communications gateways running on advanced 3G networks have provided TransGas with the following benefits:
• Cost savings – Remote, two-way wireless communication provided by AirLink devices reduces:
– Overall solution costs by providing a lower-cost alternative to landline circuits. Capital costs for installation of dedicated copper circuits, which may run to tens of thousands of dollars for remote facilities, are not lost if the facility is abandoned, relocated or just upgraded to Ethernet-based equipment; cellular hardware is simply reused.
– Service costs: TransGas is currently replacing one dedicated landline, costing $1300 per month in service fees, with a Sierra Wireless solution with cellular service fees of a mere $35 per month. Typical cellular costs of $35/month are now two-thirds that of typical data grade phone service.
– Support costs by minimizing field service interventions for upgrades and remote diagnosis.
• Time savings – Easy setup and configuration provided by ALEOS embedded intelligence and ACEware, as well as the quick deployment inherent in wireless solutions, allows TransGas to meet last minute deployment demands.
• Rugged specifications – Class I Div 2 certification and rugged specifications for the harshest environmental conditions fulfills TransGas’ strict temperature, power consumption and safety in hazardous environment needs.
• Redundancy – With many facilities in rural or adjacent to industrial areas, TransGas tandems landline and cellular communications at key facilities to ensure communications service in case someone plows through a phone/data cable.
• Remote management – The ACEware suite provides extensive remote management, configuration and troubleshooting capabilities, enabling TransGas to centrally monitor and control its network of wireless gateways.
• Enhanced customer service – Measure
ment data can be accessed more frequently, rapidly and with a lower infrastructure cost than with dedicated phone lines, allowing TransGas to meet increasing demand for hourly measurements of gas quantity and quality.
For more information on Sierra Wireless and their customer solutions go to http://www.sierrawireless.com/corporate/customerstories.aspx
