How PROFIBUS safeguards water supplies

Just a few hundred metres from the North Sea, Dunea Duin & Water at Scheveningen is located within an oasis of dunes and grasses in an otherwise densely populated area of The Netherlands. These dunes are not just beautiful, they have been acting as a natural water filter for decades. When water is pumped from a tributary of the Maas River to several dune ponds it slowly sinks into the dune sand and stays there for around two months, leaving it filtered of bacteria and viruses. It is a unique and natural purification process that other water facilities, less blessed with such natural resources, would need chemicals to achieve the same purification process.

It is this natural, efficient working method that seems to underpin the operational philosophy at Dunea: robust, smart, efficient and reliable. One of the electrical engineers at Dunea, Cees van de Noort, forms part of a dedicated process automation team responsible for the constant supply of fresh drinking water to over 1.3 million people throughout
The Hague city and surrounds. Electrical engineering has been a central focus of Cees’ professional life since graduating from high school in Leiden – and he has since built up decades of hands-on experience gained working in various facilities from water plants in Sumatra to petrochemical plants in Europe – all the while installing hardware and electrical systems to enhance profitability and reliability. This has led to his specialisation, and passion, for PROFIBUS systems – a particular technology utilised by Dunea Duin & Water to enhance their operational efficiency.

Increasing demand

Today, PROFIBUS is the dominant player in factory and process automation with a large installed user base, counting 50.9 million devices installed by the end of 2014 with over 9 million of these in the process industries. So why is Dunea using PROFIBUS? Cees explains, “PROFIBUS allows us to work with slave addresses with no interference from the outside world (Profi-Net) or other masters and devices. It is easy to monitor with Profi-trace or Combricks. Further, PROFIBUS doesn’t require IP addresses, hence no need for costly firewalls and the cyber security is tighter.” Cees shows us the operations room, where in-house built software displays all flow and pressure readings and provides notifications on failures, calcium levels, flow volumes, depths of filtration ponds and water extraction levels. Ground water that is pumped out of the water chain needs to be replenished, and all is closely monitored.

Monitoring a facility can also involve a lot of legwork, Cees here has a solution for this: “Use plugs with an integrated extra connection to hook up your laptop. This will significantly reduce the time spent walking. Also consider connecting a Profi trace, but do make sure you can match the Profi trace anywhere in the installation with the segment that you want to monitor.”

Cees is quick to stress the importance of third party certification. “We would always advise a facility to get their installation certified by a third party. We work closely with PROCENTC who take care of all our certifications. All too often it’s the system that gets the blame. Our experience is that a certified and high quality PROFIBUS installation pays dividends. Be specific about your standards and expectations and stick to them. Don’t compromise.”