Schneider Electric Romania is running a project to automate the Roșu drinking water treatment plant owned by Apa Nova București (part of the Veolia group) as part of a vast program to modernize and automate the electrical installations of the pumping and water treatment plants .
Schneider Electric Romania’s collaboration with the capital’s water and sewerage service provider began as early as 1997, with a first project to modernize the main pumping stations in Bucharest. The modernization did not include, however, the automatic operation of the pumping stations, a step necessary to ensure the continuity of the supply of drinking water, for a city as large as Bucharest.
“After the concession of Bucharest’s water and sewerage services, Schneider Electric Romania’s partnership with Apa Nova Bucharest expanded, for the automation of pumping stations and water treatment stations and for their integration with Apa Nova dispatchers, in the period 2003-2005, in -a centralized management and monitoring system,” explains Mihnea Tihan, Projects Execution Manager Schneider Electric Romania, who has followed the smooth running of projects for Apa Nova for 20 years.
“The projects carried out together with our partners have allowed, since then, the centralized monitoring of water quality and energy and water consumption in the entire pumping system of Bucharest.”
A key challenge in partnering with a major utility provider like Apa Nova Bucharest is the ability to carry out replacement, modernization or maintenance work without interrupting the supply of drinking water to end consumers. “For such projects, it is necessary to involve experienced professionals and use the highest quality equipment, so that the interruption of the supply of drinking water is limited to a maximum of 30 minutes, preferably during the hours of minimum use, i.e. usually during at night,” explains Mihnea Tihan.
“Automation to the greatest extent possible is extremely important to detect and prevent potential incidents before they occur. So does ongoing maintenance. In both directions we collaborated very well with our client Apa Nova Bucharest and we are happy that this collaboration continues even after 20 years, with a new stage.”
Schneider Electric is currently running an extensive modernization program. The programmable automatics installed two decades ago are still operating in normal parameters, but now a new, redundant system is being created to ensure the continuity of the supply of drinking water and allow the pumping and treatment stations to carry out their work in normal parameters and in the following decades. This system leverages state-of-the-art technologies, including cyber attack protection solutions that are directly embedded into the system as per customer specifications.
Two decades ago, the partnership with Apa Nova represented the largest collaboration of Schneider Electric Romania. Today, this collaboration remains of particular importance, and the water supplier for the inhabitants of Bucharest is considered a strategic partner. This is due not only to the size and duration of the collaboration, but also to the critical importance of the services they offer to the Bucharest community.
“The strategic collaboration with Schneider Electric Romania ensures the operational stability of our installations and a clear vision of the future development of applications. Access to the latest technological innovations allows us to identify the optimal moment for the implementation of essential upgrades. Our partnership is based on a deep understanding of our specific needs, and the detailed analysis of the project history facilitates the development of customized optimization solutions, perfectly adapted to our requirements” declares Adrian Untila, Director of Equipment Maintenance, Plants Department, Apa Nova Bucuresti S.A.
