WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — Brown and Caldwell, a leading environmental engineering and construction firm, today announced the launch of BC Blue™, a smart utility approach to efficiently manage and operate water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities.
Harnessing the power of emerging technologies, including Internet of Things and sensors, to collect and exchange data, BC Blue enables a broader understanding of operations and systems data and identifies organizational efficiency improvements. The approach equips staff with powerful sets of tools, user-friendly interfaces, improved data quality, and artificial intelligence-enhanced analytics for heightened utility performance.
A product of BC Blue, business intelligence visualizations collect system-wide data, transforming it into a singular view of enhanced analytical information and foresight to help staff make informed decisions faster. Bringing engineering, operations, water quality, and management together, the visualizations integrate systems including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), asset management, customer service, and geographic information systems.
By embracing the BC Blue approach, utilities can discover and utilize untapped potential to create a smart utility path forward for efficient, high-value outcomes. Subsequent benefits include real-time contaminant detection and improved water quality, enhanced asset monitoring for infrastructure and equipment replacement, predictive emergency response, improved customer service, and resource conservation.
“BC Blue helps utilities efficiently align operations and systems to better collect and understand data for long-term capital investment and innovation planning while reducing operator training time.”
Kevin Stively, smart utility services leader, Brown and Caldwell
Early adopters, the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District is using BC Blue in the implementation of its $2 million SCADA human-machine interface replacement project to support the District over the next 25 years. Connecting the District’s three water treatment plants, multiple pump stations, reservoirs, and wells, BC Blue is combining AMI and SCADA data to reduce water loss and consumption as well as aiding overall effective utility management.
SUEZ, one of the nation’s largest investor-owned utility organizations, is partnering with Brown and Caldwell to develop a state-of-the-art smart SCADA process throughout its award-winning 1,000 square mile SCADA network. The BC Blue-inspired method will establish an integrated, intuitive SCADA system harnessing data and analytics for increased utility performance and security while reducing operator training time.
Powered with this approach, SUEZ will implement smart SCADA upgrades and renewals throughout its 15 North American utility operations, ensuring alignment with the firm’s overarching smart utility vision. A first for an investor-owned utility, the large-scale integration of SUEZ’ SCADA systems encompasses more than two dozen systems, each operated independently from one another.