The WITS DNP3 Telemetry Standards went live in March 2010. Guy Fitzpatrick of ITT Water & Wastewater explains how these new standards will affect all those involved in the water industry.

All UK water companies use telemetry to monitor and control their remote assets, such as pumping stations, treatment plants and sewage holding tanks. Traditionally, telemetry consists of a remote field device which is linked to a central management system. These devices provide a wide variety of data and information for the purpose of monitoring, alarming and controlling plant and other equipment.

The issue we faced in the UK was that, up to 2003, telemetry standards had been driven by individual water companies working with their own preferred suppliers. Inevitably this led to a wide variety of different standards. Ultimately, this piecemeal approach was to the detriment of the UK’s water companies, due to the fact that, as new technologies from alternative suppliers became available, they were often incompatible with the current systems.

Furthermore, there were clear benefits available for suppliers, if we could agree to work closely together as an industry, taking joint responsibility for the development of the telemetry service available to the water companies.

The Water Industry Telemetry Standards (WITS) initiative was formed in 2003 with the aim of helping water companies generate greater efficiencies by encouraging close co-operation between water companies along with engineers and consultants in external supplier organisations. 

To harness the combined strengths of knowledge, skills and influence of the water industry

The most pressing task was to investigate the potential for standardising telemetry protocols between Field Devices and Master Stations, in order to enable water companies to move away from being locked into a single supplier.The WITS vision was simple. "To harness the combined strengths of knowledge, skills and influence of the water industry by taking responsibility for the continuous improvement of telemetry technology and service, through shared developments on behalf of the UK Water Management Organisations"

The development of what became known as "Plug and Play" compatibility, if it could be achieved, would be of enormous benefit to both water companies and suppliers. Water companies would benefit from increased product choice, reduced cost, simpler configuration, an ability to move away from bespoke one supplier systems and improved data quality. Suppliers would benefit from more market opportunities and the potential for reduced development time. 

It was clear that the key to interoperability would be to agree a common understanding of what functionality each Water Management Organisation (WMO) expected from both the master system and a range of field device types. 

The next stage was to define the functional requirements, with the team ultimately recommending the adoption of the DNP3 standard which would be suitably enhanced for the water industry through the development of a series of Application Notes.

A series of WITS DNP Application Notes which defined the rules under which the DNP3 protocol may be used were drafted to ensure the functional requirements and full interoperability between multi-vendor equipment.

A select group of vendors were approached by the WITS management team to help with the production of the Application Notes by developing their equipment to meet the new standard. ITT Water and Wastewater were one of the six original vendors approached, taking on the challenge and working closely with the WITS management team.

The founder vendors carried out a number of ‘plug fests’ at various stages to test the WITS-DNP3 standard for performance and interoperability. Once we were satisfied the standard could work across multiple vendor products the decision was made to promote and publicise the Protocol Standard to ensure industry take-up and devise methods for the long term maintenance and management of the standard.

The next stage, following the March launch, is for formal testing of the new standard, planning for the AMP5 period, finalising supporting documentation and establishment of the necessary support infrastructure.

Guy Fitzpatrick, ITT Water & Wastewater