How do you connect and manage more than 300 water-infrastructure sites across an entire island nation – with two independent SCADA applications, strict environmental targets and zero tolerance for downtime? Malta’s Water Services Corporation chose RipEX.
https//www.racom.eu/ru/case/ripex-powers-nationwide-water-scada-network
Challenge: A High-Performance, Island-Wide Network for Potable and Wastewater SCADA
The Water Services Corporation of Malta (WSC) oversees the complete water cycle – from production and distribution to wastewater collection and treatment. Efficiency is central to their environmental strategy, as reducing energy consumption directly affects water sustainability.
To support this mission, WSC required a nationwide communication network that could:
- Handle both potable and wastewater SCADA on a unified RF infrastructure
- Support more than 300 remote sites across Malta, Gozo and Comino
- Deliver fast response times and high network capacity
- Operate reliably in the 400 MHz band
- Integrate Modbus TCP and EtherNet/IP simultaneously
- Provide redundant communication paths via back-up routes
Solution: RipEX and RipEX-HS – One Unified, High-Capacity SCADA Network
WSC selected RipEX and RipEX-HS after extensive testing and evaluation.
Key reasons for choosing RipEX:
- Outstanding data throughput and low latency
- Advanced anti-collision mechanisms for efficient RF usage
- High network uptime even under heavy load
- Back-up routing options ensuring resilience
- Robust hardware with long service life
- Native support for modern industrial protocols
RipEX enabled WSC to run two independent SCADA applications on a shared RF network – improving efficiency while reducing operational complexity.
Results: 300 Sites Connected, SCADA Optimised for the Entire Water Cycle
With standard IP services built directly into RipEX, WSC engineers configured and deployed the entire system independently.
Ing. Antoine Psaila, Head of the SCADA Team at WSC, explains:
“Setting up the radio network was a learning experience for us since we were doing it in-house. From the start we were surprised how easy it was to configure RipEX, even remotely. The diagnostic tools have been extremely useful – for example the ability to see raw packets in real time helped us tremendously.”
During a follow-up technical visit to RACOM’s headquarters, WSC engineers were impressed by:
- RACOM’s end-to-end in-house manufacturing
- Detailed QA procedures
- High-level technical support and engineering expertise
Today, RipEX forms the backbone of Malta’s water-management communications – enabling efficient, reliable and environmentally responsible SCADA operations across the entire country.
