Alan Feenan, director of sales, EMR

EMR collaborates with Stern Energy to enhance cyber security for its European solar farms

Leading utility network and cyber security provider, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced a collaboration with Stern Energy, which will see it enhance cyber security and improve operational visibility at Stern Energy’s solar farm clients across the UK, Italy and the Netherlands.

EMR will deploy UniCAS, its secure communications platform, which provides standardised control and secure access with an eye to NIS2 compliance at each solar site, ensuring greater operational visibility and uninterrupted flows of grid-connected data back to its clients’ SCADA systems.

UniCAS complements Stern Energy’s technical services in the construction, management, maintenance and revamping of photovoltaic systems across Europe.

Commenting on the development, Andrea Muncivi, managing director with Stern Energy said:

“As an Operations and Maintenance (O&M) provider, we have a duty to our solar energy clients to act as their trusted advisor.  This includes making them aware of potential weaknesses in the cyber security posture of their field-based assets.  Working closely with EMR helps us to address those weaknesses and keeps our clients compliant with industry regulations.

“The EMR team has a high level of competence around secure communications.  We’re very happy with the results and keen to strengthen our service portfolio with their assistance.”

EMR’s UniCAS solution includes a managed service delivered through its network operations centre, which alerts in response to service interruptions or communications outages, allowing for swift problem resolution and maximum network uptime.  This is a critical part of the service as Mr Muncivi explains.

“Network uptime is critical for us as we guarantee response time.  For example, with a temporary communications failure we lose connectivity to the CCTV system so the risk of unauthorised site access increases or similarly an alert might be indicative of a system bypass attempt.  Without this visibility we’re running blind but EMR’s monitoring service fulfils our commitment to safe operation of our systems and consistent generation of grid data as required.”

“European directives such as NIS2 are forcing a more robust response from critical national infrastructure providers to the threats posed by malicious actors,” according to Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR Integrated Solutions.

“UniCAS has the benefit of allowing renewable energy asset managers to consolidate and control access to field assets for O&Ms, telecoms and data providers, CCTV providers and other third parties.  Onboarding and offboarding to the network is easy while centralised security policy enforces access parameters.  Our service has clearly tapped into the need for risk mitigation in cyber security and sales are growing strongly in the utility sector.”

EMR has a strong track record of working with providers across renewable energy. Its clients include Greencoat UK Wind, Schroders Greencoat LLP, Enerco Energy and Greater Gabbard Ofto.

 

ENDS

Editors’ Notes

The Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive was the first piece of EU-wide legislation on cybersecurity, and its specific aim was to achieve a high common level of cybersecurity across the Member States.  NIS2 seeks to oblige more entities and sectors to take measures, which would assist in increasing the level of cybersecurity in Europe in the longer term.  NIS2 entered into force on 16 January 2023, and Member States have until 17 October 2024, to transpose its measures into national law.

 

Pictured above is Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR Integrated Solutions

Alan Feenan sales director, EMR

EMR makes light work of secure communications rollout for the solar portfolio managed by Schroders Greencoat LLP

Leading utility network and wireless telecommunications specialist, EMR Integrated Solutions announced it secured a three-year contract to upgrade the cyber security and communications infrastructure at 124 solar farms managed by Schroders Greencoat across the United Kingdom.

Under the terms of the deal, EMR will design, deliver and manage a resilient, secure, cellular network, ensuring an uninterrupted flow of site data and maximum network uptime for the company’s line of business application.

As part of the service, the team at EMR’s network operations centre will monitor all sites and immediately escalate operational alerts relating to communications failures or system outages to relevant third parties.

All users including external third parties enjoy secure remote access based on Zero Trust principles, thanks to a cloud-based, centralised security management platform.  Unauthorised access attempts as well as exploits and advanced malware are immediately identified and blocked.

Commenting on the announcement, Adriano Tortora, asset director at Schroders Greencoat LLP said:

“The most important result of this workstream is having pro-active cyber security management in place and this addresses our governance and compliance challenges, which have become more and more relevant in recent times.”

As a first step, EMR’s field engineers conducted a full communications audit at each site.  Recommendations were then made for a common network architecture with technology uniformity across the estate.

“Our work with EMR doesn’t stop once all control projects are done,” said Mr Tortora.  “Our relationship is based on a partnership which continues to evolve as we acquire more assets.  The team are flexible, proactive and great to work with.”

Greencoat Solar has an ambitious acquisition strategy, a move that is reflective of global decarbonisation efforts.

EMR has a strong working relationship with the Schroders Greencoat group, having performed similar communications upgrades at many of its onshore windfarms across the UK and Ireland.

ENDS

Pictured above is Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR Integrated Solutions

Thomas Davy of Erisbeg with Mark Quinn, CEO of EMR

Irish Private Equity firm Erisbeg acquires majority stake in Meath based EMR Integrated Solutions

Deal is 17th equity investment by Erisbeg in past six years.

Thursday, 6th July 2023.  Erisbeg – one of Ireland’s leading Private Equity firms – has acquired a majority stake in EMR Integrated Solutions (EMR), a leading provider of integrated operational telecommunications and cyber security solutions for utilities and critical national infrastructure operators in Ireland and the UK.   The transaction is subject to regulatory approval from the CCPC.

Erisbeg has also committed to providing finance to support further acquisitions by EMR.  EMR CEO Mark Quinn and the company’s senior management team will remain with the company after the transaction completes.

Erisbeg is deploying a €110m private equity fund

Erisbeg was founded in 2017 by Alan Kerr and Thomas Davy who were senior executives with Blackstone and DCC respectively.

This deal is the latest of 17 equity transactions made by Erisbeg in the last six years from its flagship private equity fund, Erisbeg I LP. Erisbeg I LP is a fund of €110 million created to acquire key businesses that can become leaders in their sectors through acquisition and organic growth.

Investors supporting the Erisbeg fund include leading Irish and international institutional investors in private equity, including AIB plc. Erisbeg I LP invests in Irish SME’s with ambitious management teams that have a strategy to grow their business organically in Ireland and internationally.

Erisbeg portfolio businesses have combined annual sales of €175m, annual profits of €35m, and employ approximately 800 people.

Background on EMR:

EMR Integrated Solutions was established in 1981. Headquartered in Dunboyne, Co. Meath, the company is led by Mark Quinn and employs 60 people.  EMR is a leading supplier of integrated operational telecommunications and cybersecurity solutions across the utility, critical national infrastructure and transportation sectors.

Clients of EMR include large Irish utilities such as ESB and Irish Water, UK utilities including National Grid, Severn Trent Water and Northern Powergrid, transportation infrastructure providers such as Irish Rail and Dublin Port and renewable energy producers such as Greencoat and Stern Energy.

EMR has expanded significantly in recent years. Annual revenue increased fourfold to over €18m between 2016 and 2022.  For more information, please see www.emrsolutions.com

Commenting on the Transaction:

Thomas Davy, Erisbeg Partner and co-founder stated:

“Having first met Mark in 2018, we have been hugely impressed with the development of the business, initially in Ireland and more recently in the UK. We share Mark’s vision for the future and are excited by the opportunity to continue supporting the company’s growth over the next phase of its development.”

Mark Quinn, EMR’s CEO commented:

“Organic growth has taken us so far but our ambitious growth trajectory for the next five years requires external investment.  I’m pleased that we’ve come to an agreement with Erisbeg as their investment portfolio and experience reflects a deep understanding of the markets we operate in.

“Their financial strength gives us the fire power to accelerate our business growth by extending our geographic reach in Europe, developing new services and adding to our in-house expertise in designing, building and supporting smart communication networks for critical national infrastructure.”

 

LK Shields (Legal), KPMG (Financial) and EY (Tax) advised Erisbeg on the transaction. EMR were advised by BDO and Sheehan & Co Solicitors.

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Pic l-r above:  Thomas Davy, Erisbeg Partner and Co-Founder, and Mark Quinn CEO of EMR Integrated Solutions

EMR on track for strong domestic growth thanks to €11M contract with Iarnród Éireann

Leading utility network and wireless telecommunications specialist, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced it has signed two contracts with Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) for a combined value of €11 million as part of a major upgrade of the organisation’s existing fibre infrastructure and the deployment of a new national transmission network.

Based on technology manufactured by OTN, the new transmission network will support Iarnród Éireann’s operational traffic delivering high-speed, packetised data to level crossings, railway signalling, CCTV, customer kiosks and more.  It will also underpin the new National Train Control Centre, due for launch in early 2024.

The fibre upgrade will boost existing network traffic capacity and allow Iarnród Éireann to run two networks in parallel, supporting migration away from the legacy transmission system without any business disruption.

Both projects will enable more efficient rail traffic management, deliver increased frequency and improve journey times for passengers.

The initiatives are an integral part of Project Ireland 2040, a major investment programme, which will see the role of rail services maximised to meet the needs of communities, the wider economy and environment.

Commenting on the contract award Thomas Quigley, telecommunications technical manager, Signalling, Electrical and Telecommunications Department at Iarnród Éireann said:

“Projects such as the Dart+ programme, designed to extend Dart services in the Greater Dublin Area or the National Train Control Centre simply couldn’t happen without the new transmission network.

“The solution proposed by EMR and its technology partners met and, in some cases, surpassed our requirements.  Their methodology of maintaining the legacy system while building the new network was the most practical and suited our capital investment model best.  Additionally, as a local company, their support is very responsive and commensurate with a piece of critical national infrastructure.”

“Our approach to the project was based on protecting existing investment, providing a cost-effective technological migration to next generation optical & data networks whilst making the transition to the new infrastructure as seamless as possible,” explains Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR Integrated Solutions.

“We supply staged product by building and configuring devices in our technical workshop, ship them to Iarnród Éireann and then assist with commissioning where required.  Iarnród Éireann can draw down up to 1,000 man hours of technical expertise to assist with deployment and this collaborative effort will result in project objectives being realised over time.”

The first step in the upgrade is to increase capacity on the existing fibre network to facilitate the parallel build.  A Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM)* telecoms network will be deployed to ‘sweat’ the existing fibre pairs, delivering better fibre utilisation and negating the need to perform a  large-scale, physical fibre replacement.

The national transmission network, which currently stretches over 2,000 km in length will be upgraded from legacy technology to MPLS-TP**, a packet-based transport protocol designed to speed up and shape network traffic for Infrastructure Providers, supporting IP-based networking services such as video at CCTV at level crossings or customer kiosks, better traffic management at the National Train Control Centre whilst continuing to support the legacy systems that are in service across the railway.

“This project will give us an operational network that’s more reliable and more available,” said Thomas Quigley.  “It’s a massive change in terms of how we’ll be able to manage the rail network into the future, delivering a more positive customer experience.  That’s good news for all of our stakeholders.”

ENDS

Editors’ Notes
*Dense Wave Division Multiplexing or DWDM is a telecoms technology that combines traffic from multiple fibre pairs into single pairs to increase existing fibre utilisation.

**MPLS-TP is a networking technology that transports data at level 2 switching rather than level 3 routing layers and provides Iarnród Éireann with a much higher quality interface to deliver quality of service (QoS) for applications across the transmission network.

Pic l-r: Jan Hendrickx, regional sales manager, OTN, Alan Feenan, sales director, EMR and Thomas Quigley, telecommunications technical manager, Signalling, Electrical and Telecommunications Department at Iarnród Éireann

EMR signs a telemetry contract with the Northern Lighthouse Board

Sea change for Northern Lighthouse Board with selection of EMR for technology contract

Leading utility networks and mobile telecommunications supplier, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced the completion of a €500,000 (£430,000) contract with the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) to upgrade its telemetry network and deploy a new monitoring system.

The Northern Lighthouse Board manages the authority’s navigation aids in the waters surrounding Scotland and the Isle of Man.

Encompassing buoys, beacons and over 200 lighthouses, the EMR system provides reliable, real-time reporting on the operational status of these navigation aids across NLB’s coastal estate, boosting the efficiency of marine safety for all vessels.

The contract was awarded to EMR following a competitive tendering process.

Based on Inductive Automation’s ‘Ignition’ platform, the system captures real-time data from NLB’s telemetry outstations such as unmanned lighthouses and floating buoys. Thanks to a user-friendly, intuitive management portal accessible on desktop and mobile devices, staff can see at a glance the status of individual navigation aids and can click into an interactive map to view more detailed, actionable information.

As part of the project, the EMR team is currently in the process of upgrading over 150 remote telemetry units (RTU), devices which communicate with the central SCADA* system.  These next generation devices provide always-on communications and ensure real-time visibility of the assets, facilitating a more immediate response to any alarm conditions.

Commenting on the award, Alan Cran, the Northern Lighthouse Board’s Principal Electrical Engineer said:

“The new system is operationally more effective and delivers better reporting.  Trend data allows us to analyse patterns of failures or individual events. This data analysis helps with better operational decision-making and assists us greatly in proactively carrying out maintenance work before breakdown occurs.”

System obsolescence was the driver for the current project.  A phased rollout of new hardware meant that any replacement monitoring system would have to be capable of processing telemetry data from legacy analogue outstations as well as new ones and this presented the EMR team with their primary project challenge.

“We chose ‘Ignition’ as it connects securely and seamlessly with a vast array of legacy and current industrial device protocols,” said Mark Quinn, managing director with EMR Integrated Solutions.

“It’s also an open, standards-based and scalable SCADA* platform which is vendor agnostic, addressing concerns that NLB had in relation to the use of proprietary technologies and potential obsolescence in the future.  Full system failover and redundancy ensures high availability and accessibility for what is a mission-critical service,” he said.

EMR has extensive experience in utility communication networks and critical national infrastructure.  Its business has grown steadily at home and in the UK and includes utility providers such as Irish Water, Severn Trent Water, Affinity Water, Northern Powergrid, Western Power Distribution and Greencoat UK Wind and Greencoat Solar.

ENDS

Pic l-r:  Mark Quinn, managing director, EMR, David Grieve, AtoN Systems Engineer, NLB, Anna Beckett, Electrical Project Engineer, NLB, Daniel Rodden, Operations Manager, EMR, Subrahmanya Manippadi, AtoN Systems Engineer, NLB and Dermot O’Donnell, SCADA Engineering Architect, EMR

 

Elaine Mooney promoted to Project Manager on IWD

EMR boosts PMO with promotion of Elaine Mooney to Project Manager

Leading SCADA services and utility network provider, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced an expansion of its project management office (PMO) with the promotion of Elaine Mooney to Project Manager.

Elaine takes up the role having worked with the company for almost 15 years in a variety of other positions in administration and service.  During the previous five years, she was service manager.

Elaine will be responsible for smooth project delivery across Ireland and the UK, working across a number of sectors including utilities, water and telecommunications.  Her work closely ties into EMR’s existing ISO quality, environment and health and safety procedures and her addition to the PMO is in response to a strong upsurge in contract wins particularly from the utility sector in the UK.

Commenting on the move, Derek Glynn, chief operations officer with EMR said:

“We’re delighted that Elaine has decided to further her career path with us.  We always endeavour to promote from within and Elaine’s tenacity and willingness to learn has brought her through the ranks of the organisation to this key role.  She’s currently working to finish her formal project management certifications and I’ve no doubt that the rest of the EMR team will work to support her as she transitions to her new role.”

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time as Service Manager and have learned so much while working with Derek and the rest of the team,” said Elaine Mooney.  “I’m very excited about the prospect of joining the PMO and look forward to progressing my career even further.”

Elaine’s promotion announcement comes on International Women’s Day and increasing the participation of women in STEM careers is something the EMR management team are very conscious of.

“We’ve been recruiting consistently across both Irish and UK operations for the past two years or so,” explained Glynn.

“We are definitely seeing increased interest from women in STEM-related job roles.  But it’s particularly pleasing when one of our female staff members steps forward to learn and grow into another role within the team.  We’re committed to ongoing investment in our staff and career advancement opportunities will continue.”

Elaine is a native of Dublin, is married to Ian and has two girls and a boy.

EMR achieves ISO27001 accreditation and affirms its commitment to security best practice

EMR Integrated Solutions today announced it has achieved ISO27001 accreditation, a prestigious award and globally recognised standard for managing security risk.

ISO27001 is an industry-wide security standard developed to provide a model for establishing and maintaining an information security management system (ISMS) and recognises EMR’s corporate commitment to implementing security best practice in all aspects of its operations.

The award marks yet another major milestone in the company’s strategic efforts to position itself as a leading professional services provider and network integrator to the water, power and renewable energy sectors in Ireland and the UK.

Commenting on the award, Derek Glynn, chief operations officer said:

“ISO27001 certification demonstrates that EMR has adopted a framework of security best practices and this certification confirms our ongoing commitment to the security, confidentiality and high availability of our services.

“It is important to understand this isn’t a ‘one-off’ audit, but an ongoing process of continuous improvement underpinned by the security policies and procedures contained in EMR’s ISMS,” he said.

The project was spearheaded by Sean Hughes, network security engineer with EMR and successful accreditation followed a two-year process during which Sean led several phases of work.  This included planning and initiation, the establishment of a project team, defining the ISMS scope, identifying gap analysis and security risk assessments followed by ISMS policy and procedure development and implementation of controls.

“EMR sees the adoption of ISO27001 as a mechanism to protect EMR and our client information in a systematic and cost-effective way. It ensures confidentiality, integrity and availability,” said Sean Hughes.

“ISO27001 will provide a distinct market advantage, enabling us to tender for new business as it’s now becoming mandatory just like ISO9001, 45001 and 14001. It means we are more competitive and one of a select number of suppliers that make it to the tendering stage.  That gives us an edge,” he said.

The ISO27001 audit was completed in September 2021 and covered the organisation, leadership and planning, internal processes, evaluating the performance of EMR’s ISMS and verifying that all controls were in place with demonstrative evidence from the ISO27001 project team.

EMR also obtained additional security accreditations throughout the ISMS implementation process such as Cyber Essential Plus, a certification indicating to stakeholders its proactive stance against malicious cyber attacks.  This additional certification bolsters the implementation of our ISMS policies and procedures under the ISO27001 banner.

Pictured above is Derek Glynn, COO, EMR

 

EMR is proud sponsor of Scottish Renewables' Onshore Wind Conference

EMR announces sponsorship of Scottish Renewables’ Onshore Wind Conference

Leading SCADA network and wireless telecommunications supplier, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced that it will act as event sponsor at this year’s Scottish Renewables’ Onshore Wind Conference.

The event which takes place virtually on 1st June next is a major date in the diary and brings together leading decision-makers to map out how Scotland can secure a sustainable future for the sector by examining the business opportunities—as well as the obstacles—and considering the system changes needed to achieve its net-zero target.

EMR is in good company and shares a platform with other event sponsors such as SSE Renewables, RWE, Natural Power and official media partner, reNews.

Commenting on the move, Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR said:

“The Scottish renewable energy market is a key area of focus for us in 2021 and beyond.  We’re delighted to act as an event sponsor which gives us the opportunity to share our knowledge and expertise in building utility-grade networks with other members.”

Renewable energy professionals are invited to EMR’s virtual exhibition booth where we will deliver a live presentation, entitled “Guaranteeing Secure, High Availability Comms to Remote Locations: What are the Pitfalls?”

During the slot, we will explore some of the challenges  we see when investing in mission-critical comms networks and how asset managers and site operators can avoid potential operational problems by investing in and securing their communications networks.

Further details on the conference including registration details are available here:  https://www.scottishrenewables.com/events/130-onshore-21

Revenue boost for EMR following €13.3m contract win with UK’s Northern Powergrid

  • Digital transformation project supports customers and enables low carbon, smart grid future through enhanced remote network management
  • EMR’s UK operation to support 20 green energy jobs by 2022

Dunboyne, Co Meath, Thursday, 1st April 2021:  Leading utility network and wireless telecommunications specialist, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced it has secured a €13.3 million contract with the UK’s Northern Powergrid, as part of its digital transformation to a smarter, greener electricity grid.

Under the terms of the deal, EMR will upgrade the company’s secondary Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to an IP (Internet Protocol) communications platform across 7,500 distribution substations.

This investment will enable Northern Powergrid to activate enhanced automation across these substations, centralise control of its remote field assets and build a better understanding of electricity consumption patterns across the grid.

EMR’s UK operation, based in Manchester, is growing steadily and is currently recruiting to support 20 green energy jobs by early 2022.

This project is a critical part of Northern Powergrid’s ongoing work at the forefront of net zero development and green growth.  The company powers everyday life for 8 million people across 3.9 million homes and businesses in the North East of England, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.

Commenting on the investment, Mark Nicholson, Northern Powergrid’s Head of Smart Grids, said:

“This project will enhance network flexibility and build more digital capability to meet our customers’ needs now and in the future. It will help facilitate our transition to a Distribution System Operator (DSO) that actively manages varying generation and demands across our grid as our customers become more dependent on electricity to power their lights, heating and transport.

“The ability to remotely operate more of our assets and improve network visibility through collection of real-time monitoring data will help us provide better services to our customers.  We can use the IP network to remotely troubleshoot and manage devices across the air, which reduces infrastructure management costs and enables us to be responsive to an active network and the needs of our customers.”

“This is an exciting contract for EMR to be part of,” explained Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR.

“The project design offers Northern Powergrid a secure, responsive and fully compliant technical solution, while delivering a robust and easy to manage platform for the organisation’s team of engineers.  Our approach to designing, building and supporting utility networks is viewed by many utility providers as a critical element of their digital transformation efforts and organisations such as Northern Powergrid have responded positively, viewing EMR as a safe pair of hands.”

Paul Green, project manager for Northern Powergrid, said: “The project rollout is underway and due for completion by March 2023.

“We’re working closely with the team at EMR to ensure we have the support we need to deliver our plans.  Where we have technical challenges, we work together to overcome them, and the project team is very responsive which is important as we make this investment a reality for our customers.”

EMR entered the UK utility market just over five years ago and during that time has established a strong footprint working with utility providers such as SSE, Greencoat UK Wind, Greater Gabbard OFTO, Northern Ireland Water, Severn Trent Water and Affinity Water.

ENDS

Pictured above is Alan Feenan, sales director with EMR

EMR inks €560,000 contract with Dublin City Council to support flood management system

~ Managed telemetry and SCADA network provides actionable data for flood prevention and mitigation ~


Dunboyne, Co Meath, Tuesday, 9th March 2021:  Leading SCADA network and wireless telecommunications supplier, EMR Integrated Solutions today announced it has been awarded a single party framework contract by Dublin City Council (DCC) to manage and maintain the city’s rainfall, river monitoring and tide monitoring network SCADA system, key components of its flood management efforts.

The contract, valued at €560,000 will run for three years with the option of three annual extensions, bringing the total potential value to € 1.1M.

Thanks to a telemetry network of 69 outstations and a hosted SCADA system, staff at DCC have uninterrupted access to real-time data, which alerts them to the threat of flooding in the capital.

Pre-configured alarm thresholds set for rain gauges, sewer loggers, river level monitors, tide monitors, weather stations and river trash screen monitoring cameras provide valuable advanced warning, allowing council staff to take remedial action and potentially prevent local flooding.  This data forms the basis for adjustment of alert thresholds based on past events.

Commenting on the deal, Alan Vickers, chief technician, Flood Projects and Water Framework Directive, Dublin City Council said:

“EMR has a full team of field and SCADA engineers that support the DCC regional SCADA system through associated site work, installations, repairs and calibrations to instruments and the company met all the detailed and specific criterion that was asked for, during the tender process.”

EMR provides a full managed service to the council.  The SCADA and telemetry system is hosted in EMR’s data centre with automatic failover to a secondary cloud-hosted server farm for business continuity.

Using the ‘Ignition’ platform from Inductive Automation, DCC staff have access to a user-friendly and intuitive reporting dashboard that drills right down to site level.

Real-time data ‘on the go’ is available through any smartphone device for mobile engineering, technical and maintenance crews.

“While DCC look after the monitoring of the system, setting of alarm thresholds and the response to events, EMR is responsible for ensuring that accurate information is always available in a timely manner,” said Brian Martin, sales director with EMR.

“This solution serves as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the council for flood risk and is complemented by our SCADA expertise, available on demand from our mobile engineering teams.”

The SCADA network is a critical piece of infrastructure.  For example, staff know that if rainfall amounts consecutively exceed 2.4mm in a 15-minute period at certain locations, there is a risk of localised flooding if these conditions persist.  As a result of past flooding experiences, it is possible for EMR and DCC staff to have pre-set rainfall intensity warnings.

Any pre-set level or rainfall threshold that is breached, is captured in the Ignition System and forwarded in the form of an “Information Alarm” to DCC engineering and technical crews, on a 24/7/365 basis. DCC engineers or on-call engineers can then take appropriate action if needed.

Predicted high tides are managed in the same way. The SCADA system has the ‘City Boardwalk’ level on the trend.  A real time graph of tide levels and the fixed ‘Boardwalk Level’ can be seen, and appropriate action taken if necessary.

Dublin City Council expects to oversee the expenditure of €6 – €10M in flood alleviation schemes over the next 12 months.