Gaznat AG has supplied and transported high-pressure natural gas to western Switzerland for over five decades.
Natural gas is an important component of Switzerland’s energy mix. Not only does it significantly contribute to the country’s energy security and sustainability efforts, but is an integral element of their 2050 energy vision and strategy.
Gaznat operates approximately 600km of high-pressure gas pipelines which supply gas to both public and private distributors. To manage this vast network, they utilize a supervisory and control system (SCADA), with data transmitted over a private network to its 76 stations.
Challenge
With an aging network that could not scale to meet its growing needs, Gaznat needed a suitable solution to replace and modernize its end-of-life communication equipment.
Demands on the existing network resulted in unstable and inefficient communication which also hampered the introduction of additional services including closed-circuit television (CCTV), voice, metrology and tele-maintenance.
On top of these needs, another critical project goal was to migrate their network from the synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) standard to the modern packet-switched Ethernet standard.
The solution
Hitachi Energy worked closely with the Gaznat team to develop a new solution that would achieve their vision. Since they had previously piloted the EDS500 switch on other projects, Gaznat were confident in selecting the 500NMD64 solution to replace and upgrade over 40 nodes on their mission-critical communication network.
The 500NMD64 switch has an inherent exceptional ability to transport serial data.
The EDS500 product family has been specifically designed for critical infrastructure and industrial applications. Its enhanced communication technology ensures minimal downtime and enables predictive failure notification and encrypted management.
The switch achieves this by detecting, monitoring and analyzing network conditions that may result in severe errors and/or malfunctions, and notifying users before conditions become critical.
“By adopting a collaborative development process, Hitachi Energy was able to address the technical requirements of the project and provide Gaznat the assurance of a tried and tested solution,” said Pascal Daleiden, Country Managing Director of Hitachi Energy Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
The impact
Not only was Gaznat assured of investment protection, but the reduced operating expenses and long product lifecycle helped enhance and expand the sustainability of its operations.
Besides providing a reliable and robust communication network, the solution also processes modern SCADA protocols. Not only does this convert legacy IEC 60870-5-101 protocol into IEC 60870-5-104 to ensure higher data rates, but it also provides a simple process for the transfer, backup, and restoration of device settings.
These features work to ensure faster management and configuration.
The ruggedness of the product, enabling operations in harsh environments, and gigabit connectivity to support bandwidth-intensive applications were additional factors in Gaznat’s decision to upgrade to Hitachi Energy’s 500NMD64 switch.
If you would like to speak to our team about modernizing your communication network, please contact us here.