By Paul Hemsley

Electrical control systems will monitor pipe works in a SA Water project to send desalinated water from the south to the north of Adelaide.

Industrial automations and control systems company, SAGE Automation is the contractor providing the monitoring technology, with $6 million from SA Water on this specific component.

The South Australian Government’s initiative is the North South Interconnection System Project (NSISP).

SAGE Automation general manager SA/NT, Justin Kahl said the company’s system is about control and monitoring of the system, which includes the pipe work and new pump stations to pump the water from the south to the north of Adelaide.

“Our system sits on top of that, monitors the pump stations, monitors all the pipe work and flow control and maximizes the flow and has alarm monitoring so if there’s any issues with the pump stations, for example alarms, it alerts personnel,” Mr Kahl said.

Mr Kahl said SAGE Automation provided the electrical control systems, as well as the control cabinets, with about 70 in total.

Wireless technology was provided because in some of the areas, the civil contractors need wireless technology to talk in between different systems on a network.

Primarily all the systems are networked as well, Mr Kahl said.

“We use vendors for the wireless, which are third party and off the shelf,” he said.

According to Mr Kahl, SA Water may specify a particular product that they suggest SAGE uses, or if not the company would use its preferred technologies for the application.

“We’re pretty much across all technologies, which is one of our challenges being diverse in the sectors that we work in and the technologies that we provide."

“Typically, most of your major manufacturers and utilities use pretty standard technology,” he said.

He said the company participated in an invitation to tender from SA Water to work on the project.

Mr Kahl said SAGE Automation is on the SCADA panel (System Integration, Control Systems, Electrical works and Related Services), meaning there iss the ability to tender the project in an expression of interest.

“They essentially do an expression of interest and we say that we’re interested in tending to that work, it’s part of our core capability, and from there we receive the tender, specifications and tender documents, which is quite a large project,” Mr Kahl said