Australian Water Management Review Vol. 1 2014 | Page 72

CAse studY: CAlgArY, CAnAdA The Client The City of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada Calgary is a city with a population of 1,100,000 covering 746 square kilometers (288.032 square miles). More than 1.5 million people live in the greater Calgary area. The Project Water resource management, using the best available technologies and practices, to meet the growing horticultural needs of Calgary-area parks, open spaces, recreational sites, and landscaped areas. Goals and Challenges The water control and monitoring solution had to include over 1,000 parks and landscaped areas, including a number of LEED certified buildings. The Mottech Solution Calgary boasts the largest and most sophisticated municipal application of the IRRInet system, manufactured by Motorola Inc., using IRRInet Control Center (ICC) and Irrigation Management Solution (IMS) software for water management. The ICC manages the water flow and distribution to 1,059 parks and landscaped areas, including several buildings at a fire department training center. There are currently 1,450 IRRInet controllers in the field, with new ones going in every week, for 15,628 valves. Using Dell quad-core servers, parks authority operators program and monitor water delivery from one central location. They receive reports of water consumption and accumulation from each valve, as well as alerts of abnormal events such as low flow, high flow, no flow, or a burst main line. Throughout the parks and the landscaped sites, the city installed the following irrigation controllers: • IRRInet ACE • IRRInet M • Scorpios • IRRInet XM • IRRIcom • Piccolo XR All the Motorola controllers communicate via a network of low- and high-power UHF frequencies, high-power 800MHz frequency, and eight nodes of GPRS modems linked through the wireless provider. Results and Benefits With the Mottech solution in place, the City of Calgary Parks Department has reduced its water costs by about $4,000,000 annually. The customer also saves approximately $3,100,000 every year in labor, vehicle, and equipment expenses for manually managing citywide irrigation systems. The IRRInet-ICC solution, with total system control, can be expanded and modified to meet changing municipal needs. And even in the case of infrastructure disruptions, IRRInet’s redundant communication paths ensure increased reliability and system continuity. What the Client Says “It is our practice to evaluate the effectiveness of our system and compare the systems actual water use. We have found that the Motorola system achieves a conservative 45% reduction in water consumption compared to our baseline irrigation water budget calculations. In fact, we have sites that experience as much as a 75% reduction in water use related to the system’s ability to adjust the amount of water being applied…” – Denis K Gourdeau, Water Management Coordinator, Resource Management - Parks, the City of Calgary Mottech Presents Motorola IRRInet The Comprehensive Remote Irrigation Management System Turf & Landscape Water Distribution For agriculture, urban water control, turf and landscape irrigation, infrastructure projects, and more. “We’ve had the IRRInet system in operation for 9 successful years, effectively enabling us to manage water distribution for 30 city parks, [and] save on costs by efficient reuse of water and natural water collection...” Stephen Comben, Strategic Projects & Operation Coordinator, Parks and Gardens, City of Whittlesea, Australia Robust and reliable real - time remote monitoring, automated irrigation, water delivery, and flow control Field-proven durability in the most challenging environmental conditions Modular and scalable - from the smallest area to thousands of hectares, with unlimited field controllers Fully pre-tested and project configured State - of - the - art off - the - shelf equipment made by Motorola Advanced data handling, trend analysis, and reports Connectivity with external sensors and devices Highly qualified technical support, consulting, and remote operation services With more than 23 years of experience, dedicated service, and top-tier technology, Mottech brings the most advanced and cost-effective centralized irrigation control solution available anywhere straight to the Australian market. Municipal Water Special Projects Just ask some of those who’ve already chosen IRRInet: Melbourne, Whittlesea, Boroondara, Randwick, North Sydney, Sutherland Shire, Toowoomba, Donovan Avocados in Queensland, and the Townsville Council. Mottech Water Management PO Box 11 Harrisville Queensland, Australia 4307 T: (07) 546 71001, M: 0488 661036 E:[email protected] www.mottech.com Mottech is a worldwide master distributor of Motorola's IRRInet systems 66 | AustrAliAn water man age m e nt re v ie w [M&G] Agricultural