As critical infrastructure in water, energy, and utilities becomes more interconnected, the choice of SCADA communication protocols is more important than ever. From real-time monitoring in solar farms and substations to asset control in water treatment facilities, the right communication backbone ensures performance, reliability, and future scalability.

At Australian Control Engineering (ACE), we design and integrate SCADA systems using industry-standard protocols tailored to specific project needs. Our expertise spans from legacy systems to cloud-based SCADA deployments using platforms like VT SCADA and Ignition.

SCADA Communication Protocols Used in Water and Power Systems

Water and power utilities rely on SCADA protocols that are proven, robust, and suited for wide-area networks and field environments. In Australia, common protocols used in SCADA system integration include Modbus, DNP3, OPC, and IEC 60870-5-104 (IEC104).

These protocols ensure secure, accurate communication between RTUs, PLCs, sensors, and SCADA software platforms. They also support redundancy, time-stamped events, and the ability to synchronise field assets with central control rooms in real time. Whether the project involves a solar PV system with BESS or a regional water pumping station, protocol choice impacts system speed, complexity, and future integration potential.

Differences Between Modbus, DNP3, OPC, and IEC104 in SCADA

Each protocol has its strengths depending on project requirements:

Modbus is widely adopted and simple to implement, best suited for point-to-point communication or smaller systems with minimal latency demands.

DNP3 is preferred in power distribution and grid environments, offering timestamped event logging, secure communication, and support for SCADA-to-RTU and SCADA-to-SCADA architectures.

OPC UA (Unified Architecture) is more common in modern, interoperable systems where multiple platforms and devices need seamless integration and data modelling, especially in industrial IoT environments.

IEC104 is widely used in utility applications for its ability to support large distributed systems with real-time event handling and secure IP-based communications.

Choosing the wrong protocol for a SCADA system can create integration bottlenecks or future upgrade challenges. At ACE, we help clients assess system scale, latency requirements, and vendor compatibility to select and implement the best-fit protocol.

Choosing the Right Communication Protocol for SCADA Systems

Every SCADA system has unique needs based on geography, asset complexity, and regulatory requirements. Utility companies and energy developers must consider factors such as:

  • How many field devices are in use

  • Whether the system operates over serial, TCP/IP, or wireless

  • Requirements for event-driven vs. polling-based communication

  • Cybersecurity and authentication mechanisms

  • Data volume, update frequency, and system response time

Our engineers conduct protocol compatibility assessments during the design phase of each project. This ensures that clients benefit from future-ready SCADA architecture, easy vendor interfacing, and support for secure remote access and diagnostics.

Cloud-Based SCADA Systems Using VT SCADA and Ignition

As utilities and renewable projects embrace digital transformation, cloud-enabled SCADA platforms like VT SCADA and Ignition by Inductive Automation are growing in adoption. These platforms offer advanced scalability, mobile access, and integration with IoT devices, analytics engines, and external APIs.

ACE supports both on-premise and hybrid cloud deployments using these platforms. With VT SCADA, clients benefit from built-in redundancy, real-time alarming, and web-based access. Ignition, on the other hand, enables highly customisable HMI development, MQTT integration, and seamless scaling from pilot plants to nationwide deployments.

Both platforms support standard SCADA protocols (Modbus, DNP3, OPC UA, IEC104) and are fully adaptable to modern communication stacks used in solar, wind, and battery infrastructure.

Certified VT SCADA Integrators in Australia

ACE is proud to be among the certified VT SCADA integrators in Australia, delivering tailored SCADA engineering services across the water, power, and energy sectors. Our engineers are trained in VT SCADA architecture, security protocols, scripting, and interface development, ensuring smooth project delivery from design through commissioning and beyond.

We also offer system migration services from legacy SCADA platforms to VT SCADA, reducing technical debt and enabling greater system insight, uptime, and remote management.

SCADA Engineering Services for Power and Renewable Energy

Our SCADA engineering services are designed to meet the operational goals of EPC contractors, developers, and asset operators across the power and renewable energy sector. Whether it’s grid-connected BESS, solar farm monitoring, substation automation, or remote SCADA for water utilities, we provide:

  • System design and protocol selection

  • RTU and PLC configuration

  • Secure remote access and alarming

  • HMI/SCADA development in VT SCADA and Ignition

  • Commissioning and iFAT services

  • Long-term SCADA support and expansion readiness

At ACE, we engineer solutions that scale with your portfolio, maintain compliance with Australian energy standards, and enhance control over critical infrastructure.

Build Smarter SCADA Systems with ACE

As the utility industry continues to evolve, the right communication protocols—and the right integration partner—will determine long-term operational success. Whether you’re building a new plant, retrofitting existing infrastructure, or migrating to cloud SCADA, ACE is ready to support your journey.

Contact us today to speak with a SCADA engineer or request a project assessment.

Australian Control Engineering is specialised in operation technology network audit, automation design and implementation for utilities industry. If you would like to learn more about our capability and understand how we can help you accelerate your results, please Contact us.

Welcome audience, engineers, partners and clients. It has been a while since communicated with you on social media, so I hope you all well. So today I’d like to bring up the topic of the SCADA communication. And I’m sure you’ve been travelling this technology route really well and gained a lot of experience and understanding of the SCADA systems.

So today I’m going to revisit this topic. As you know, the SCADA stands for supervisory control and the data acquisition. It’s widely used in many industries. For example, power, water transport, oil and gas, renewable energy as the technology matures, and it can generate more and more efficiency for plant operation and business operation. So that’s why we see increasing trends of utilisation of the SCADA.

We at Ace specialised utilities industry. So, our slogan is engineering the smart utilities. So, we use SCADA design SCADA, deliver SCADA projects on daily basis. All our engineers are very fluent, very proficient with the various SCADA platforms such as Scitech SCADA, GeoSCADA or Clear SCADA, Factory Talkview and many other SCADA.

well. We also delve quite deeply into cloud-based SCADA. For example, ignition and VT SCADA. We are certified systems integrator for VT SCADA and already implemented our projects on the VT SCADA locally here in Australia.

it comes to communication protocols for SCADA, the common. Ones include DMP, three Modbus, Ethernet, IP and OPC. There are some other protocols. For example, IEC104 has been used quite a lot in the power system industry in Australia. However, the install base of the DNP3 is much larger, especially when it comes to the water industry and oil and gas industry.

In some scenarios, power systems also use the DNP3 . Here, MODBUS is also another prevalent communication protocol. It’s a much older protocol created in 1970s. Although it’s old protocol, it’s very simple, efficient to use. That’s why it’s also been widely used even for the remote control and monitoring as well. As technology being developed, DNP3 is being matured as well.

So DMP3 is known for its timestamp, functionality, buffered, event functionality and the. Security as well. It’s designed for the long-distance communication,

if you have an asset in a remote area. And when it comes to Ethernet IP, it’s widely used in the planned operation. We have seen it’s been used for the remote monitoring and alarms monitoring for a remote location. But it’s been used less in that way, more in the local plant-based automation.

The other protocol is called OPC, and OPC UA becomes popular as the automation develops itself because it has not only the timestamps, the alarms, event and information, but also it can be integrated seamlessly into the data historians. So that brings a lot of advantages for the clients they don’t have to do protocol conversion between the field device SCADA and the data historian, so everything can be streamlined, and the record can be kept and fed straight into the data historian.

That will create a lot of efficiency when it comes to engineering, system integration, and also for keeping the integrity of the data as well.

We are executing a lot of projects currently on SCADA. One of the projects we’re executing using DNP3 protocol to establish trust, secure and reliable communication between our stations and the GeoSCADA, and that particular application is for a local water industry.

I hope you enjoy this video and all other videos we produced so far. I really thank you for your faithful support. We really appreciate you like subscribe and comment below. Once again, thanks very much for watching. If you have any questions. Please give us a call or send us email.

We’ll be happy to assist you. See you next time.

Australian Control Engineering is specialised in operation technology network audit, automation design and implementation for utilities industry. If you would like to learn more about our capability and understand how we can help you accelerate your results, please Contact us.