Ebro River Basin Authority's Picks Teltronic for New TETRA Network

The new network responds to present and future remote control needs, improves energy efficiency and incorporates redundancy to increase safety levels.

The Ebro River Basin Authority (CHE, Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro), organization that manages, regulates and maintains the water and irrigation of the Ebro hydrographic basin (northeastern Spain), has selected Teltronic to renew its TETRA digital radio network, a system that provides voice and data services in almost all of the 85,534 km2 of the basin, which represents 17% of the Spanish peninsular territory. The project has the financial backing of the European Union Next Generation, with an investment of 1.8 million euros.

The TETRA network is a fundamental tool for the CHE, as it supports the communications of the Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH), responsible for capturing, transmitting in real time, processing and presenting the data that describe the hydrological and hydraulic status of the basin; allowing the Basin Processing Centre (CPC, Centro de Proceso de Cuenca) located in Zaragoza to remotely manage the infrastructures, including dams, canals, irrigation systems, etc.

The main objective of this telecommunications service, which has more than 600 measuring stations, is to facilitate and ensure the availability of essential information for proper management and decision-making, both in normal situations and in flood or emergency episodes, in order to reduce the damage caused by these, as well as to carry out efficient management of hydraulic resources to optimise their exploitation.

In this way, the company will deploy its TETRA NEBULA system with a total of 67 units of the MCBS, Teltronic's base station with multi-carrier capabilities, which not only improves the data traffic capacities with respect to those previously installed, but also allows a reduction in energy consumption, which was one of the priorities. 

The solution also includes the  Switching Control Node, of which a second unit will be installed in a different location with the same capabilities and functionalities. This geographical redundancy, inherent in the NEBULA architecture, responds to the Confederation's need to guarantee data transmission at all times and ensure the full operation of the SAIH even in critical situations.

The new Teltronic system is compatible and interoperable with the more than 600 SAIH terminals, which are installed in equipment such as flow meters, rain gauges, weather stations, etc. and whose information is sent to the Basin Processing Centre where the telecontrol of the different infrastructures is carried out. 

In addition to these measurement and remote control functions, the TETRA network allows voice communications between the personnel working in the different infrastructures and offices of the basin, which is an essential requirement for the implementation of the Emergency Plans in the dams, also providing an additional means of data communication to guarantee the communications of the warning siren posts to the population.

The new TETRA network of the Ebro River Basin Authority will have the most advanced functionalities and features on the market, and is prepared to meet the requirements of telecontrol that may arise in the future as well as to incorporate additional broadband services, which would allow the current operations to be expanded to enable the exchange of massive data, such as video transmission in real time,

explained Miguel Aladrén, Iberia's commercial director.