Shortening gas-to-grid rounds in the jungle: A case study with Automation Solutions Ecuador

Key highlights:

The article shows how process data collection and monitoring can be automated even in highly isolated locations like the Amazon jungle.
It details a working example of integrating Inductive Automation’s Ignition Edge IIoT, Opto 22 groov RIO and Azure Cloud for real-time visibility and historical data storage.

Manually collecting and entering data into Excel is hard enough. Doing it twice a day—in the Amazon jungle—is even less of a picnic. Smart Energy Applications had been dealing with these difficulties ever since it started implementing its Gas to Grid in a Box (G2G_B) generators and support system units for gas-to-grid (G2G) operations at remote oil-and-gas facilities in the Amazon wilderness. The units make electricity using the untreated gas that accompanies crude oil extraction. G2G_B consists of a generation unit from Waukesha, control and synchronism from Woodward Easygen, and load shedding from Multilin.

However, because they’re in remote, hard-to-reach locations with no permanent staff or continuous monitoring, Smart Energy’s generators required daily or twice daily, in-person visits by operators, who manually recorded their information in an Excell spreadsheet at the end of each shift. This input was analyzed the next day at each client’s headquarters, and used to build weekly and monthly Excell reports that combined process indicators and financial data.

To automate and alleviate this time-consuming and costly process, Automation Solutions Ecuador recently developed a hybrid architecture using Inductive Automation’s Ignition Edge IIoT and Ignition Cloud Edition in Microsoft Azure. These software packages were added to Opto 22’s groov RIO device in Smart Energy’s RTU box. These devices are networked via Modbus TCP, and connected directly with the Ignition driver, while the Modbus RTU devices are connected via a Moxa adapter to use the RTU/TCP driver. Each G2G_B unit requires one Ignition Edge installation.

For historical storage, these gas-to-grid systems operate an Azure database for MySQL and an Ignition Cloud Edition subscription using Microsoft Azure. Ignition Edge publishes the collected data using MQTT, and subscribes using Cirrus Link's Distributor and Engine modules for Ignition, with Starlink satellite-based Internet for data transmission.

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ASE designed G2G_B’s interface for Smart Energy using Figma’s software tool, and further developed it with Ignition Cloud’s Perspective module. The interface includes a dark theme and parameterized views to dynamically add future generators. The application is mobile-responsive and has login and language selection options, along with sections for real-time monitoring, historical queries, events, KPIs and reporting (Figure 1).

Figure 1: To automate time-consuming, costly, manual data collection and reporting on Smart Energy Applications’ Gas to Grid in a Box (G2G_B) generators at remote oil-and-gas facilities in the Amazon, Automation Solutions Ecuador developed a hybrid architecture using Inductive Automation’s Ignition Edge IIoT and Ignition Cloud Edition in Microsoft Azure, which were added to Opto 22’s groov RIO device in Smart Energy’s RTU box. G2G_B’s interface includes a dark theme and parameterized views to dynamically add future generators.

Consequently, Smart Energy automated data collection on its G2G_B units, which can now collect and process it without human intervention. Operators and managers can monitor the generators and related components in real time, including CO₂ emission reductions, and generate alerts when interventions are needed.