Visualization and control of the central heat distribution system in north-western Bohemia

October 30, 2019 | Reliance SCADA

The objective of the project was – based on a conducted study – to replace the existing software and hardware equipment and create a central heat-distribution operator portal for the heat distribution company (CEZ Teplarenska) for seven localities in north-western Bohemia.

Three localities now have new operator workstations (1 x main heat-distribution control room – 6 x monitor 1920 x 1200, 2 x surveillance room – 1 x monitor). It was also required to connect to the office network and allow users to access the portal through the Reliance SCADA/HMI system's thin client (2 x 25 licenses).

Users can access the portal via Reliance Web Client from their office computers or on site from tablets connected to the enterprise VPN. Reliance's access rights are required for accessing and controlling a process.

Next, it was necessary to provide connection to new installations for the predictive control of heating systems. This is done through OPC communication with a single system, where Reliance acts as an OPC server (Reliance OPC Server), provides the predictive control software with data, and forwards the resulting requests to heat-exchanger plants, and in a way where the Reliance system itself downloads weather forecast data and performs predictive control calculations for a particular locality.

Teplice Control Room

Control system

Reliance SCADA was chosen after previous experience with this system. The project uses both the system's native communication drivers and its openness in terms of scripts, which allows communicating with enterprise systems.

The Reliance system has a client–server architecture with redundant servers (Reliance 4 Combi Package Enterprise). Control is provided by a large number of PLCs by Schneider Electric, Siemens, and AMiT.

The system provides communication with all heat-exchanger plants and logs data and alarm reports from a central location. For technologically important sensors, alarm limits are set in the system to early detect a possible heat-distribution problem.

Data from the heat-exchanger plants is transferred together with data from heat meters. It is then passed to a superior enterprise system to send bills to end consumers.

The system for the visualization and control of the central heat-distribution operator portal was implemented by the MARTIA company in 2017–2019.

Examples of visualization windows

A map of the Bilina locality depicting its heat-exchanger plants and heat meters

Visualization of the cooling system at the Fontana shopping mall in the city of Teplice

The Beethoven heat-exchanger plant

The Prunerov Power Station's output hot-water temperature

The Chomutov locality – weather forecasting

Try the Reliance SCADA/HMI system

Try the Reliance SCADA/HMI system on several example projects or download the installer of the trial version for free.