Matt Treeby (S), Gary Palframan (CTech), Indika liyanage (S), Tom Pelly (MHRMB)

A $40,000 investment in Siemens Technology is helping to achieve savings of over 90 megalitres of water annually for Mt Hotham Alpine Resort, in Victoria.

The excellent return on investment was achieved by using recycled waste water for snowmaking, instead of fresh water. This has a significant impact on the surrounding water resources and assists Mt Hotham Alpine Resort to operate with increased environmental responsibility to the area.

The reduced reliance on local water resources also ensures long term sustainability of the resort.

Siemens Industrial Automation and Control (IAC) Factory Automation Product Manager, Matt Treeby, said to achieve the great result the wastewater treatment plant was upgraded and Ultra-filtration was added to produce the Class A water required for snowmaking.

“Peak season snowmaking demands an output of 2 megalitres per day and the upgrade needed to allow for twice that amount in the future.

“The recycling of this volume of water to the required Class A standard meant a full upgrade of the overall control system was needed.

“The challenge was to ensure the upgraded control system would be reliable and maintenance free even in the extreme weather conditions from -8C and snowing in winter to 20C and torrential rain in other times of the year.

“The extremes in temperature and moisture mean condensation in the control cabinets is common and standard electrical components are not reliable in the conditions. This leads to more failures and higher maintenance costs,” said Matt. The solution was to use Siemens ET200Pro remote input/output modules for all of the exposed areas. This reduces the total lifecycle cost of the plant.

The ET200Pro was connected via Profibus to the Siemens S7 Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) for complete integrated control of the water treatment plant.

Mt Hotham Alpine Resort Project Manager and Manager Technical Services, Tom Pelly, said the ET200PRO sounded great and delivered under exceptional circumstances.

“Mounting its input/output modules in the field allowed for simple connection of sensors and everything worked. We got great service from Siemens and Control Technologies, a Siemens authorized reseller,” said Tom.

Mt Hotham Alpine Resort IT Manager, Ian Young, said the system has worked fantastically well, with no issues during the first winter of operation.

“Due to tight project scheduling and the early onset of winter, we often found ourselves commissioning equipment during blizzard conditions. The ET200PRO’s were exposed everything Mother Nature could throw at them and they just kept working. No failures, no issues, no complaints,” said Ian.