Controlling intelligence

The operation of the Ring Main and most of the Thames Valley reservoirs are coordinated from a new œ3.3 million control room at Hampton.

The main centre is linked to two smaller ones, which together control the Ring Main, 30 well stations, over 50 reservoirs, pumping stations and hundreds of flow metering points.

The system allows for continuous monitoring of pressures, flows, water levels and quality. A careful study of the pressures alerts staff to any leakages or burst mains.

Data is fed back to the control centre from thousands of sensors throughout London.

The central control room at Hampton is dominated by a huge 5.5m-wide and 2m-high screen display system.

It gives operators access to live information from the supervising control and data aquisition (SCADA) system.

The graphics system is able to reconfigure the images displayed from the full eight screens to a condensed four screen image.

This releases the four outer screens, two either side, to display other images.

Spare screens are selected by steering one of four separate 'hot spots' on the main image and calling up a dialogue window on the relevent SCADA workstation.

From here the image is displayed on each of the four screens.

The London Water Control centre was built in less than a year, says Thames, and replaces a disused coal wharf which, until a few years ago, provided fuel to drive the steam turbines at the Hampton Water Treatment Works..

l Thames Water says a system such as the Ring Main is a unique solution to the worldwide problem of ageing distribution systems in major conurbations.

Every city, it says, should have such a system, and future generations will see the scheme as an initiative on a par with the interceptor sewer system commissioned by the London's Metropolitan Board of Works in the 1850s, which remains the foundations of the city's sewerage system.