Smart Utility Offering Provides Real-time Business Intelligence

Brown and Caldwell, an environmental engineering and construction firm, has announced the launch of BC Blue, a smart utility approach to manage and operate water, wastewater, and storm water utilities.

Harnessing the power of emerging technologies, including Internet of Things and sensors, to collect and exchange data, BC Blue enables an understanding of operations and systems data and identifies organizational efficiency improvements. The approach equips staff with sets of tools, interfaces, data, and artificial intelligence-enhanced analytics for utility performance.

A product of BC Blue, business intelligence visualizations collect system-wide data, transforming it into a singular view of analytical information and foresight to help staff make decisions efficiently. Bringing engineering, operations, water quality, and management together, the visualizations integrate systems including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), asset management, customer service, and geographic information systems.

By embracing the BC Blue approach, utilities can discover and utilize untapped potential to create a smart utility path forward for efficient outcomes. Subsequent benefits include real-time contaminant detection and improved water quality, enhanced asset monitoring for infrastructure and equipment replacement, predictive emergency response, improved customer service, and resource conservation.

The Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District is using BC Blue in the implementation of its $2 million SCADA human-machine interface replacement project to support the district over the next 25 years. Connecting the District’s three water treatment plants, multiple pump stations, reservoirs, and wells, BC Blue is combining AMI and SCADA data to reduce water loss and consumption as well as aiding overall utility management.

SUEZ is partnering with Brown and Caldwell to develop a smart SCADA process throughout its 1,000 square mile SCADA network. The BC Blue-inspired method will establish an integrated, intuitive SCADA system harnessing data and analytics for improved utility performance and security while reducing operator training time.

Powered with this approach, SUEZ will implement smart SCADA upgrades and renewals throughout its 15 North American utility operations, ensuring alignment with its overarching smart utility vision. A first for an investor-owned utility, the large-scale integration of SUEZ’ SCADA systems encompasses more than two dozen systems, each operated independently from one another.