InTouch HMI won us

over with its state-of-

the-art truly realistic
graphics that are
more attractive to
operators and easier
to use too, than
the conventional
imaging used by the
other supervision
software that we were
offered in response
to our request
for proposals.
Rodolphe Petit
Head of Operations, SUC
ArchestrA System Platform helps run the Air Conditioning
Systems Chilled Water Production at Dalkia
Goals
Create a solution that will supervise the chilled
water production installation used to provide
air conditioning for part of the prime Paris-La
Dfense business district
Providing easy to use block diagrams as the
installation welcomes many non technical visitors.
This is a showcase for Dalkia, for future national
and international customers
Using open software that is independent
of the proprietary standards used by
PLC vendors (the installation comprises
PLCs from a variety of vendors)
Efciently archiving and using all of the
process data in a centralized way
Challenges
Changing supervision software vendors without
excessively upsetting operators routines and the
actual production
Encouraging operation, especially by
implementing a large screen with summary and
intuitive graphic presentations for users who are
not technical experts
Solutions and Products
ArchestrA System Platform
Wonderware InTouch HMI
Results
A user-friendly application was created
where operators work with very easy to
use block diagrams that make decision
making easier
A 50-inch screen offers an overall view of the
installation with state of the art 3D graphics
provided by the integrator partner (BASIS)
using Wonderware tools
A user-friendly application
Improved control over operations
leading to increased production
equipment availability and signicant
savings in the use of various energies
INDUSTRY: POWER
UC/DALKIA
www.dalkia.com
Paris, France We hope for great weather! This
hope is one that everyone has at the beginning of the
summer, with the upcoming prospect of festivities or
recreational pastimes and this is a hope shared by
SUC , aka Socit Urbaine de Climatisation (French for
The Urban Air Conditioning Company, a subsidiary of
International Group Dalkia). Only here, it is a business-
related one. SUC supplies the chilled water used by
the air conditioning systems in some of the buildings
at Paris La Dfense, Europes largest business
district. More specically, SUC is a public utility with
a concession from the Dfense region urban heating
syndicate (Syndicat mixte de Chauffage Urbain de la
rgion de la Dfense or SICUDEF) for the production
and distribution of cooling in the towns of Courbevoie
and Puteaux, along the Seine River.
This chilled water supply is used to avoid the need
for any unsightly, voluminous, noisy and polluting
conventional air conditioners, whether they are
individual units on the front of buildings or collective
ones on roofs (with multiple cooling towers). The
chilled water supplied by the SUC production facility
feeds a fully insulated 10 km network that runs from
building to building, cooling 1.5 million square meters
of ofce space. The water circulates in a closed circuit,
leaving SUCs refrigeration units at 4.5C and returning,
after absorbing heat from the buildings, at 14.5C. The
SUC cooling facility has a production capacity of 76.5
MW. Despite the size of the equipment used, the facility
is a discrete one, located in a plain building, one that
is soundproofed and well integrated into the urban
landscape. In its principle, the way it works is similar to
that of a household refrigerator. One original aspect of
the installations operation is that the condenser circuit
is cooled by water pumped from (and then returned to)
the Seine River thanks to two major pumping stations,
each with a capacity of 12.000 cu. meters per hour.
From Conventional Supervision to
New Generation Supervision
SUCs installations trace their origins back to 1972.
Naturally the equipment used has evolved over time.
The command and control system, based on the use
of PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) was recently
renovated. The approach adopted up until then
was not impacted, but latest generation PLCs were
installed, communicating via Ethernet over a ber optic
loop so as to exchange data with the control room. For
the control room, the specication requirements could
be met by a wide range of off the shelf supervision
programs: SUC was especially looking for a system
that would run on redundant servers with reliable data
archival functions, but which was open to industry
standards (as the installation comprises PLCs from a
variety of vendors). From a functional point of view,
most of the software that we were offered met our
needs. InTouch from Wonderware won us over with
its state of the art truly realistic graphics that are more
attractive and easier to use too, than the conventional
imaging used by the other supervision software that we
were offered in response to our request for proposals,
comments Rodolphe Petit, Head of Operations at
SUC. For sure, we dont often here this from industrial
clients! The decision reached by SUC no doubt reects
a change in mindset. Those who lived through the early
days of off the shelf supervision applications remember
that back then, vendors stressed the appearance of
the diagrams with the ability to show objects with
rounded edges, shading effects and displays offering
thousands of colors. Industrial clients often had
reservations regarding these aspects, considering
them to be gadgets. Consequently, at most industrial
facilities, supervision images are rather boring. This lack
of ambition by industrial clients doubtless somewhat
discouraged supervision software vendors who put
Control station & 50-inch display
the accent on developing new functions, often at the
expense of improved imaging. In this eld however,
Wonderware did not give up, quite the reverse, with the
ArchestrA graphic symbols available with version 10.0.
This aspect was a decisive one for SUC who preferred
to select InTouch rather than the latest iteration
of the application already installed on-site!
The SUC supervision application covers over 8,000
variables and more than 100 diagram screens.
A Showcase Application for DALKIA
The change did not call for any in depth rethink for
SUC as it has always contracted out the development
of its applications. Furthermore, the was a smooth one
as the software was rst deployed at the new pumping
installation, before being rolled out across the entire
facility. SUC control room technicians were already
used to working with one dimensional block diagram
displays, and they were quite happy with them too.
In the application deployed with InTouch, main views
were developed using this approach which at least
offers the advantage of now overloading the view.
Among the 118,000 energy installations (hot and cold
uid networks, electricity networks, etc.) managed
by the Group worldwide, few relate to chilled water
networks and SUC is responsible for one of only two
deployed in France. Consequently, SUC is a showcase
for Dalkia expertise in air conditioning. When they
visit Dalkias Head Ofces at La Dfense, the Groups
clients and partners take the opportunity to pay us a
visit to see for themselves what a cooling production
unit looks like in a high density built up area. Every
year we receive some 350 visitors and most of them
are sales people rather than technicians, so we felt it
important to make an effort with the graphics, states
Rodolphe Petit, who like most of us likes the realistic
graphic illustrations, especially the highly realistic
synthetic imaging (standout animations, 3D technical
descriptions, animation lms, etc.). This is how the
control room, that overlooks the technical installations
(that are visible through a large glass window), with
its impressive 50-inch display screen, offset from the
other screens used by the operators, shows a true
overview of the installation, showing equipment states,
the power delivered by the cooling units, the ow rates
of the pumps, the temperatures of the chilled water
circuit (on leaving the plant and on the way back), the
outdoor temperature, the various energy consumption
levels as well as the facilitys efciency. This screen take
advantage of InTouchs graphic resources to provide
a very colorful, dynamic 3D image, one that has all
it takes to grab the attention of a visitor looking for a
chance to see Dalkias expertise at work.
Multiple Source Real-time Data
Control operators also use the indications provided by
the 50-inch screen. Some, like the weather forecasts,
may at rst sight seem superuous No way, says
Rodolphe Petit, this data is useful to the operators.
If a storm is forecast, for example, then we know that
debris will be carried away by the Seine River and
that we will need to reduce the pumping rate. More
generally, running an air conditioning unit requires
anticipating demand and to do this, it is important
to know the weather forecasts, the level of building
occupation (weekends, public holidays, vacation
periods), when new tower blocks will be opened,
which ones are undergoing renovation work, etc. In
other words, the whole process is way more complex
than it seems and is a very difcult one to model as the
environment is a highly changeable one.. To improve
operations, SUC uses the reports that are automatically
generated by the Historian Server solution, the
Wonderware historian application. It also uses
indicators like the performance coefcient which is
something of an energy efciency indication. The latter
value is calculated, in real time, from the data collected
by the ArchestrA System Platform and Historian. Since
this architecture was implemented, there has been a
signicant positive impact on 97 efciency. For the rest,
the architecture comprises two redundant servers that
three workstations are connected to, two for operations
and one for development needs. A ber optic
Seine river, water pumping station
Ethernet network handles data transfers between the
supervision system and the PLCs, as well as carrying
the video surveillance data that is all combined on
a separate screen. It should be noted that the video
cameras are combined with image processing
techniques able to detect any movement within the
cameras line of sight and that if any change shows
up, then the relevant video image is automatically
enlarged, immediately alerting the operator of a
possible intrusion into the area monitored by the
camera. This recent installation, (completed late in
2009), will now evolve especially to better set out the
alarm hierarchy and obtain the power that is actually
delivered to every customer.
Success with this project was the result of three-way
collaboration between:
WONDERWARE FRANCE
Who brought a complete solution based on reliable
and open tools that complement each other so as
to meet the specic demands made by SUC.
SUC
As project owner and facility operator, SUC was able to
express their requirements and actively take part in the
various development phases so as to achieve results to
match their goals.
BASIS
A long time player in the eld of automation systems
and industrial computing, BASIS was able to build on
their knowledge of Wonderware products and the
wealth of options offered by them to create cutting
edge user friendliness to serve the operators. At
BASIS the watchword is an operators mind serving
operators and once again, this was applied to the
project so as to create innovations in view presentation
and browsing thanks to the possibilities offered by the
latest versions of InTouch.
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Rel. 01/13 PN WW-4161
Seine river, water exchange display and
icy water pumping station overview