The project, awarded by Harbin Water Supply and Drain Group Co, will include automation of a new water treatment plant and reservoir complex serving Harbin City.

China's seventh-largest city and capital of Heilongjiang Province, Harbin has 3 million residents and produces 940,000 tons of wastewater per day.

As part of a plan to meet this ever-growing demand, the Municipal Authority of Harbin is building the new 450,000m3/d water treatment plant, a new 356-million-cubic-metre reservoir complex, and expanding and rehabilitating its existing water distribution network by installing 175km of pipeline.

At Harbin, PlantWeb with the Ovation expert control system, Foundation Fieldbus intelligent field devices, and scada system with integrated AMS Suite: Intelligent Device Manager, will provide continuous monitoring and control of the new plant and reservoir complex, as well as monitoring and control of 14 existing remote wastewater plants and pump stations that are part of the wastewater collection system.

In total, Emerson's Ovation system will monitor and control roughly 20,000 I/O points.

Emerson will install two redundant networks, five redundant controllers, one redundant Scada server, 48 laptop PCs, 24 operator stations, two remote terminal units and 142 Foundation fieldbus intelligent devices including Rosemount transmitters and Rosemount Analytical instruments.

The project is expected to be completed in August 2006.

Besides providing superior control of processes, installation of the Ovation system will also enhance operational efficiency and flexibility by enabling operators to monitor both the water and wastewater processes from a single location - a new central control centre to be located at the municipal authority's headquarters.

'Emerson offered us a comprehensive and scaleable control solution that will allow us to fully and efficiently integrate and optimise our new assets, like the plant and reservoir, as well as existing plants and pump stations', said LiLi Meng, Information Technology Supervisor, Harbin Water Supply and Drain Group Company.

'In addition to delivering control and valuable operational insight throughout our expanding water system, we know the Ovation system will be able to grow with us to meet our future needs'.

'The enormous growth and development in China today has placed greater demands on the water and wastewater services for population centres like Harbin', said John Berra, President of Emerson Process Management.

'We're pleased to be able to apply the advanced technologies of PlantWeb and Ovation to a ground-breaking project that will serve this growing community's needs now and for years into the future'.