Critical alarm and event management technology supplier, Omniflex has worked with the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) to upgrade equipment providing digital and analogue signals for NECSA’s safety critical fire and gas alarm systems. The new Teleterm M3 remote terminal units (RTUs), which use the company’s proprietary conet technology, require minimum wiring changes to existing panels at its Hartbeespoort Dam site, 30km outside of Pretoria, making the upgrade installation quick and disruption-free.
Teleterm M1 and M2 telemetry RTUs replaced the original Conet squeezer units which were originally installed by Omniflex in the 1980s and 90s for the then Atomic Energy Board. The Teleterm units provide the same functionality while reducing the spares holding requirement by being transceivers – rather than being transmitters and receivers – and allow mixed analogue and digital signals.
Using Teleterm modules allows the site to use the same Conet networking topology across its 127 outstation units allowing them all to be connected via existing copper cable, but replacing any legacy equipment that has become faulty because of age or external factors such as lightning strikes.
“Using the Teleterm M series reduces the installation costs by using the existing cabling and panel space, helping to bring about significantly reduced engineering and configuration time,” explained Ian Loudon, international sales and marketing manager at Omniflex. “This allows us to replace a small part of the existing system with minimal disruption so it continues to work as well as it has done since installation.”
Providing this new equipment for its outstation units allows the NECSA plant to maintain its fire and gas safety critical alarm detection systems alongside its nuclear radiation monitoring capabilities. Existing cable to the fire station control room allows for cost savings and minimal interruption across the site. All outstation alarms from the entire campus are displayed on Omni16 Annunciator panels for duty staff to action from the fire station. Omniflex was also on hand to provide on-site commissioning assistance and technician training for the new system to ease the transition to the latest technology.
The Teleterm M3 RTU and M1 units are the latest iteration of the industry-proven RTU range that Omniflex has provided over its 60-year history, still supporting customers who first adopted the technology decades ago.
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