Brentingby Dam

Brentingby Dam is a clay embankment dam that was completed in November 2002 to protect the town of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire from a 1 in 100 year flood event. Three penstocks within the control structure close during times of extremely high water levels in the River Eye to create a storage area capable of containing 3.5millon m³ of water; an area so large that it qualifies as a reservoir under the Reservoirs Act, 1975. The original flow-based control philosophy regularly gave inaccurate flow measurements that made the system unreliable. The flow sensors have been replaced by a redundant arrangement of water level sensors that ensure that no single sensor failure results in a failure of the flood defences. A SCADA PC has also been incorporated into the system that records critical system operations to allow system performance analysis and early fault diagnosis.

Long Eaton Flood Protection

The close proximity of Long Eaton, Derbyshire to the River Trent and its tributaries makes Golden Brook prone to flooding as it travels through the town. The flood defences consist of two upstream storage areas that can be intentionally flooded in times of high water and two downstream pumping stations that can prevent flood water from the River Trent flood plain entering the town. These previously independent sites were integrated into a single flood defence scheme with the ability to respond collectively to a flood event. Penstocks at the storage areas control the water level in Golden Brook during a flood event to ensure that only excess flood water is retained and the available storage capacity is optimised. Penstocks at the pumping stations close to contain water within the flood plain whilst water from Golden Brook is pumped onto the flood plain and away from the town.

River Avon Sluice Gate Control

Seven sluice gate sites cover the length of the river Avon to control to water level in both normal and flood conditions. Each site uses a Rockwell PLC which communicates back to the master PLC on a BT EPS42 network. All the data from the sites is logged and monitored on a RSview 32 SCADA system.

River Weaver Sluice Gate Control

Nineteen sluice gates over 8 sites control the river level around the town of Northwich. The RSview SCADA system alerts engineers of alarms via recorded alarm messages sent to their phone in the event of an alarm condition. The system uses a BT EPS42 network for the master Rockwell PLC to collect data from the remote sites.

The case study refers to the original project prior to september 2010.