Clean and fresh pool water using less energy & water

Poolwater have more than 30 years of experience in designing, assembling, and servicing bathing pools for hotels, spa’s, and public pools. Starting with a 3D-design, Poolwater will support their customers with complete service from planning to installation and maintenance. The backbone of Poolwater’s control system rely on the experience of Poolwater and a hardware and software solution from Beijer Electronics. Here, Sven-Erik Månsson, CEO at Poolwater tell us about their solution.

Complex and expensive investment requires automation

Building a pool can be a rather complex and expensive investment. Whether it is for a wellness center, a hotel spa or a public swimming pool, Poolwater support their customers through the whole process from the idea stage to the first dip in the water and the following operation of the facility.

“A pool has an approximate life-span of 20-30 years, and how it is maintained, makes all the difference. An important value that Poolwater brings to the table once the pool is constructed, is the simplicity of operation and keeping energy consumption down, which leads to faster return of investment for our customers. Adding an automation system has a payoff in approximately only 2 years” says Sven-Erik Månsson. “Our control system monitors the pH-level, temperature and flow to ensure a healthy pool water at all times. Depending on the time of the day, or day of the week – the pool will be used by a different amount of people and therefore an automated regulation is needed. Some of the pools we are installing are rather complex, and the need of a secure automation is key to maintain a high water-quality.”

A control system to rely on

It is easy to understand that the control system for controlling and monitoring the pools is of great importance. And Poolwater was the first company in Sweden to provide their pool installations with their own control system. In the early days, the control system was based on a standard PC, but when placed in the control room, it would only last a couple of years before it had to be replaced, due to the damp environment. Today the control system runs on an open and flexible solution from Beijer Electronics based on CODESYS, iX HMI software and Modbus communication. The control system can easily be adapted for the customer’s needs and requirements by Poolwater’s own staff.

"We made an extra effort to create a user-friendly setup for our customers when designing the iX application. With customized color schemes, images and symbols the application fits our brand and corporate identity and essentially, providing an intuitive user-experience – something we get a lot of positive feedback for doing. ..."

”When we starting looking for a new control system, we evaluated several different manufacturers. We wanted to have one supplier for the whole system, including the PLC, HMIs, Ethernet switches, IOs and frequency inverters, so that we only had one point of contact if needing support. We found Beijer Electronics products to be of high quality with modern technology, HMIs, and interesting products. I would also say the programming is fairly simple compared to other suppliers.” says Sven-Erik Månsson. “We made an extra effort to create a user-friendly setup for our customers when designing the iX application. With customized color schemes, images and symbols the application fits our brand and corporate identity and essentially, providing an intuitive user-experience – something we get a lot of positive feedback for doing. We have also been able to add advanced functionality by using the C# scripting facility in iX.”

"...We found Beijer Electronics products to be of high quality with modern technology, HMIs, and interesting products. I would also say the programming is fairly simple compared to other suppliers.”

Control, secure network and alarm handling

What Poolwater has built, is a system that controls pH-level, temperature, and flow. It keeps historical data for documentation and sends alarm messages if something goes wrong. The system is monitored with one or several X2 HMI’s and controlled by a BoX2 running CODESYS with additional IOs. With Korenix Ethernet switches and Modbus communication to all parts of the solution; the frequency inverters are able to work smoothly together.

In some cases Poolwater’s customers do not allow external suppliers on their network for security reasons. Therefore, Poolwater are using Beijer Electronics CloudVPN solution to setup their own network, enabling them to send alarm messages via emails and to connect for status checks remotely.

"...Working closely together with our suppliers makes us stronger as a company and brings us at the forefront of our applications. We only have good things to say about Beijer Electronics!”

Growing and levelling up

Setting up separate network is the first step to increase the benefits of digitalization, and another future feature would be to interact with the control system from a mobile or tablet.

“Beijer Electronics has been a supplier we have been able to grow with – which we still are! We have received great support and access to expertise if needed. Working closely together with our suppliers makes us stronger as a company and brings us at the forefront of our applications. We only have good things to say about Beijer Electronics!”

Learn more about the products used in Poolwaters solution:

• iX HMI software
• X2 control HMI 
• CloudVPN
• BoX2 PLC
• Distributed IO and CODESYS control
• Unmanaged ethernet switches
• General purpose industrial inverters E3
• BCS Tools