SCATU - in 2010 it became the first Remote Telemetry Unit (RTU) designed specifically to monitor remote pumping stations, water levels, power failures, intrusion alerts, (the list goes on) without requiring any utility infrastructure, supervisory control or monitoring system. If something went wrong, owners, operators, or supervisory personnel received a text message direct to their cell phone.
In a Waste Water Lift Station Application, normally the Alarm Input is tied to the lift station's high level alarm float. If anything goes wrong with the pump, the float will lift, and after a few seconds an alarm text is sent to one or more cell phones. Power Failure? An SMS message is sent in minutes. Power Restored? A "power restored" notification is sent. Each notification includes the street address and/or other designation the utility chooses to identify its pumping stations, so the operator can drive directly to problem, wherever he may be.
Since the initial SCATU deployments the systems have continued to evolve and SCATU3 has added GIS Mapping, Group Management, Realtime Graphical Status, Pump Runtime, Frequency and Balance Monitoring, as well as System Health Status, while the overall package has gotten smaller and more rugged.
SCATU units have been in continuous service since June 2010 and have saved countless dollars in service interruptions and cleanup costs. They have also enhanced public relations by showing the customer proactive steps that utilities have taken to avoid future problems.
As of June 2018 SCATUs have notified local utilities of over 13 thousand alarm conditions and collected over 3.8 million Lift Station records.
Blog Alert! Click Here to Read an Entertaining Account of the SCATU's development.
Customer Quotes:
"Our electrician was impressed."
"It was simple to install. Within 30 minutes, we had it pulled out of the box, mounted, wired, and received our first test alarm text message."
"I'm already thinking up other possible uses for SCATU. It just works."
"While full-featured SCADA monitoring systems are required at some of our most critical stations, they often send repetitive minor alarms, needlessly waking our service technicians in the middle of the night. SCATU only sends us critical alarms, and with multiple units in service, we have never received a false alarm."
"You can't imagine how much simpler and useful this is over traditional SCADA systems until you have tried it."
"After a direct lightening strike on the Lift Station, the SCATU was the only piece of equipment that didn't require replacement or major rework."
"The first thing I do every morning is look at the report emailed to me by the SCATU system showing me potential problems."
"Because the SCATU has the patience to watch the pumping cycles over several hours or even days, it detects problems our techs could never see before."
