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What we do

SCADA integration for utilities, ports and municipalities

We have been integrating SCADA systems in Abu Dhabi since 2008. Most of that work has been on assets already in service: transmission stations under load, pumping networks feeding district irrigation, and a potable water pipeline crossing open desert.

We are an engineering contractor rather than a software house. The same team specifies the architecture, configures the servers, terminates the fibre and attends site acceptance. That matters on brownfield jobs, because when a point stops updating the cause is usually in the wiring, the gateway or the point list rather than in the software.

Very few of these projects begin on a clean site, which is why the survey comes before the design and the outage plan comes before the programme.

Typical brief

Where most enquiries start

Three situations account for most of the SCADA work that reaches us.

Obsolete hardware

The system still runs, but the vendor has ended support, spares come from the second hand market, and the engineer who configured it has left. We survey the installation, document what is actually there, and stage the replacement so the process is never dropped.

No route for the data

The plant is fine. Getting anything out of it is not. This is gateway and protocol work: IEC 60870 5 101 and 104, Modbus RTU and TCP, IEC 61850 on newer bays, and the point mapping that keeps one signal meaning one thing on both sides of the link.

New plant, existing control room

A pump station or substation joining a network already in service. The difficulty is rarely the new equipment. It is addressing, alarm philosophy, and agreeing who owns which side of the interface before anyone is on site.

Scope

What the scope usually covers

  • System design and architecture
  • Hardware specification and supply
  • Database and mnemonic configuration
  • Graphics and HMI development
  • Alarm and event configuration
  • Gateway and protocol mapping
  • Redundancy and failover
  • Fibre optic and IT network installation
  • Factory acceptance testing
  • Site installation and termination
  • Site acceptance testing
  • Control centre integration
  • Operator and engineer training
  • As built documentation and O and M manuals
  • Civil works where the contract includes them

Track record

Projects we delivered

Completed contracts with the client and the dates. Follow any card for the full detail.

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Platforms

Platforms and protocols

On replacement work the platform is set by whatever your control centre already speaks. We have delivered on Schneider, GE and PcVue systems, and we are not tied to one vendor.

  • Schneider Electric EcoFIT
  • Schneider Electric C264 BCU
  • PcVue SCADA
  • GE Proficy
  • IEC 61850
  • IEC 60870 5 101
  • IEC 60870 5 104
  • Modbus RTU and TCP
  • DNP3
  • ICCP
  • ISO 9001:2015
  • ISO 45001:2018

Method

How a project runs

  1. Survey

    On brownfield work this is the week that saves the programme. Drawings and installation rarely agree, and the copper is the record that counts.

  2. Detailed design

    Architecture, point schedules, network topology, panel arrangement and shop drawings issued for approval.

  3. Factory test

    Configured and proven in our Mussafah workshop with your engineers present, before anything ships.

  4. Installation

    Panels, cabling, fibre and terminations, plus the civil and MEP work where the contract includes it.

  5. Site test

    Point to point checks first, then live integration with the control centre.

  6. Handover

    Operators and engineers trained separately, since they need different things, with as built drawings and manuals.

Common questions

Questions we are asked about this

Can you integrate a system you did not supply?

Yes, and most of this work is exactly that. It begins with a survey of the existing configuration, the protocols it exposes and the interlocking it currently depends on. At Shakhbout City we integrated new stations into the client's existing irrigation SCADA without replacing anything at the supervisory layer.

Can it be done without shutting the plant down?

In most cases. Grid stations are cut over bay by bay, and pumping systems around duty and standby sets. It has to be designed in from the beginning rather than solved on site, which is why the outage plan is written before the programme.

Which protocols do you work with?

IEC 61850 on newer bays, IEC 60870 5 101 and 104 to control centres, Modbus RTU and TCP, DNP3, and ICCP where a legacy inter control centre link is involved. On replacement work the protocol is decided by what the control centre already speaks and what the installed base supports, not by what is newest.

Do you cover civil and electrical work too?

Yes. Keeping one contractor across that boundary removes the interface arguments that cause most of the delay on these jobs. On the Jabal Mibrih potable water pipeline the SCADA and the 17 kilometres of fibre it runs on were a single contract.

Where do you work?

Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and across the United Arab Emirates. We are an Abu Dhabi company, with the head office in the city and the panel workshop in Mussafah.

How long does a project take?

A single pump station can be a few months. Multi station grid replacements run for years, because the schedule is set by how many outages the utility will release. The two TRANSCO SCMS contracts ran from 2017 to 2022 and to 2023.

Related

We're here to help!

We want to hear from you. Let us know how we can help.

Send a message

Emailinfo@almafor.com
Sales+971 55 954 5801
Technical+971 55 954 5802
Office+971 2 665 5540
Address
Office 4, Mezzanine 2, Dongfeng car showroom building, Khalifa Bin Zayed The First St
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

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