Monitoring

Monitoring our client’s assets and the services we provide to them is critical to managing water, stormwater and wastewater services for our clients and to our commitment to continuously improve our business. 

Monitoring includes everything from collecting data on wastewater overflows in the network to monitoring  fat levels at pump stations to data collection for reservoir inlet/outlet flows to levels of contaminants in the harbour and waterways.

We have a SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system based at Capacity Infrastructure Services which enables us to control pump stations and collect data for trend analysis for reservoir inlet/outlet lows, water consumption, pump run frequencies, and wet well and reservoir levels.

Our engineers use this data to maintain and optimise network operation, produce monthly reports, cost analysis, consumption prediction and improve overall system synergies.

For example, high levels of fats detected in Wellington City pump stations led to increased inspections on private grease traps. We needed to ensure that grease traps were well maintained so that fat levels found at pump stations decreased.  As a result of this programme there has been a noticeable drop in fat levels found at pump stations in the central business district.

The introduction of remote field computing technology to our staff has meant they can be out in the field working from their virtual office wherever they are.  The system links directly back into the telemetry base at Capacity Infrastructure Services.  While our people are out working in the field they can receive an alert through their mobile phones indicating an issue with the infrastructure network.  This enables them to respond to the faults more quickly.

In addition to monitoring the assets themselves we monitor all operations and maintenance contract performance measures to ensure we achieve savings for our shareholding councils.