Efficient water supply for Belgrade

A city of two million inhabitants, Belgrade is rebuilding and modernizing its infrastructure on an unprecedented scale. A special focus is the city’s water supply system, which is far from being modern and efficient. But a new system employing the latest technology will soon be commissioned.

Omron supplies a large number of system integrators across Europe. One of them is a company called Mikro Kontrol based in Belgrade, Serbia. Established just over a decade ago, it has become one of the top providers of industrial automation solutions in the region. Thanks to its broad product range, high quality and excellent technical support, Omron equipment supplied to the company can be found in control rooms of the largest Serbian factories in the steel, building materials, coal mining, chemical, public utilities and many other industries.

Belgrade Waterworks improvement project

It was in autumn 2001 when Mikro Kontrol, received the confirmation that funds for the long-discussed Belgrade Waterworks improvement project were approved. The main objective was to reduce the amount of water wasted due to improper control of the pumps and reservoirs. It was estimated that the savings would pay back the initial investment in just a few years.

The proposed monitoring system required modernization of the systems controlling the water supply from the River Sava to the city. This included 102 wells, 28 pumping stations, 20 reservoirs and 5 control centers – all within a 50 km radius. In cooperation with the main contractor, a Japanese company called Ebara, a joint project team came up with the solution, which was based on 96 CJ1 controllers, 24 NS12 touch panels, 30 servers and 20HMIs connected to each other via Ethernet SHDSL routers, GPRS routers and layer-3 switches.

To give an indication of the size of this project, the total hardware weighed 24 tons!

Offer a complete solution

Apart from a large installed base at the various Belgrade Waterworks sites, strong local support and the ability to offer a complete solution were the main reasons for selecting the chosen solution. As sole subcontractor, Mikro Kontrol won contract for the control instrumentation, which amounted to 59 control cabinets and 19 racks of equipment. Together with the engineering works, an estimated 880 man days were required for producing the turn-key solution. The project required Mikro Kontrol to expand its capacity, so in June 2006 they opened a new 500 m² facility in the city of Novi Sad, 80 km north of Belgrade.

The factory was commissioned on 6th October, and the project sponsor, the Japanese government, was represented at a handing-over ceremony by Japan’s ambassador in Serbia, Mr Tadashi Nagai. He was accompanied by a delegation from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, JICA. Omron was represented at the event by Martin Greslehner, manager of Omron’s sales office for Austria and Western Balkans.

In order to achieve better coverage of the Balkan region, JICA has recently announced that its office for the Balkan region will move from Vienna to Belgrade. Mikro Kontrol’s general manager, Mr Milanov, said, “My team and I look forward to further cooperation of this kind in the future. Such excellent cooperation will bring new business opportunities in similar infrastructural projects in the region. With the experience gained from the Belgrade Waterworks project, we have every reason to be enthusiastic about future possibilities.”