AWWA IMTECH51425

The electric industry -- through the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) -- began developing the Utility Communications Architecture or UCA (TM) in 1988. The result is a complete set of specifications allowing monitoring and control devices to interoperate with utility applications in a multi-vendor environment. The UCA provides the common language, semantics, services and interfaces for integrating the equipment in real-time utility operations. From the beginning, EPRI targeted the UCA to apply to all utilities including electric, gas, water and wastewater. They enlisted the water and gas utility industries in 1992. Since then, the water industry has been active in UCA's development. This paper seeks to inform the water industry about UCA and to highlight UCA's benefits and provide a roadmap for adopting it. The paper also promotes the adoption of UCA as standard practice. It briefly summarizes UCA's history and provides readers with a basic background in UCA technology. Includes figures.