Real - Time Model - Based Dam Automation : a Case Study of the Piute Dam

For over five years, Piute Dam in the Sevier River Basin of Utah has been equipped with an automatic gate to regulate releases into the downstream irrigation delivery system. This system has allowed the water commissioner to remotely set the desired flow target. The gate then automatically adjusts itself to provide the specified outflow. Although this has been very convenient, the determination and setting of the target release flow rate has remained a humaninitiated action. Recent improvements to the system have now automated this part of the process to provide a greater degree of convenience and efficiency. Currently, Piute Dam is being used as a test bed for automation technology. In conjunction with the Sevier River Water Users Association (SRWUA), the Bureau of Reclamation’s Provo Area Office developed software to enable automation of the Piute Dam outlet gate. Software used in this process includes the OpenBasin software package for real-time data acquisition, a model developed for Piute Reservoir by Abedalrazq Khalil and Mac McKee of Utah State University, and other software used to develop Internet-based control and reporting. Furthermore, the software developed to provide supervisory control, policy enforcement, and diagnostics was integrated into the OpenBasin software package. This software is open-source and available for free. This allows other water districts to apply these tools to their own automation projects.