Community of Irrigators 3º Sector, Section III – Canal Margen Izquierdo del Najerilla (La Rioja)

maintenance services

The Community of Irrigators 3º Sector, Section III sector 3º, section III of Canal Margen Izquierdo del Najerilla is one of the most important communities of irrigators in La Rioja (http://www.reganteszarraton.es/), with a surface irrigated of 9,017 Ha. Its main crops are winter cereals, vineyards, vegetables, beets and fruit trees.

It is one of the Communities of Irrigators in Spain most committed to the conservation of the environment and the reduction of pollution in natural and cultivated areas and for this reason, they make constant investments in the management of irrigation and the control of discharges in order to achieve their environmental goals.

In 2007, a process of modernizing its irrigation network began by installing a remote control system based on ISM radio technology with 832 remote hydrant control stations, from which it manages 6,716 plot sockets. They also have three large ponds and 8 pumping stations with 43 pumps installed.

The Community of Irrigators of Najerilla has started in 2017 a gradual process of renewal of its telecontrol system to improve the performance of its current system, improve its reliability and reduce its maintenance costs. After testing different alternatives, the Community has relied on the solution proposed by Orionis based on remote sigma5 irrigation stations with 2G / GPRS communications, which control the irrigation of both the main hydrant and its shared sockets. This solution allows to mix the old remote radio with the new one with IoT technology.

The renewal of the telecontrol is being carried out in stages. Thus, in 2017, 30 sigma RTUs were installed, in 2018, 160 sigma RTUs were installed, and at the beginning of the 2019 campaign, 100 new sigma units were installed.

The change works are carried out by the personnel of the Community since with these new RTU the assembly and commisioning is very easy, so there is no need for expert staff in communications; the process consists on replacing the old RTU with the new ones that are installed in the irrigation chamber. The old solar panels are also replaced by new ones of 5w that allow to configure the new telecontrol system in ONLINE mode, that is to say; with response times in real time, much faster and safer than the old radio installation.

The attached image shows the changes made, in which it is observed that the old masts have been used to install the new solar panels.

Currently, Orionis provides maintenance services to the Community of its telecontrol system and of all its pumping stations.