SCADA Systems introduces supervisory control and data acquisition: the systems that let one operator watch and control equipment spread across a plant, a substation or a whole utility service area. The statewide description lists the subject in six parts: typical applications, common system components, the human-machine interface (HMI), the communications infrastructure, SCADA generational architectures, and security. It is a lower-division Engineering Technology course (prefix ETS, statewide number ETS x550), and it comes after programmable logic controllers in the automation sequence.
The course is new and small in Florida. It has two public carriers, and both added it recently. Lake-Sumter State College carries ETS 2550C (effective October 2025). Indian River State College carries the unsuffixed ETS 2550 (effective August 2026). The bare and C numbers are one statewide course filed two ways, so they transfer as the same course; no institution carries both forms. With only two carriers, what follows is hedged: the statewide outline is common ground, and the rest depends on which programme the course sits in.
The two carriers point the course at different industries. At Lake-Sumter it belongs to the Substation and Relay Technology specialization of the A.S. in Engineering Technology, built with Duke Energy and SECO Energy to prepare substation and protective-relay technicians. At Indian River it follows PLCs and robotics in an industrial-automation sequence. SCADA is the same technology in both settings, but expect the examples, the equipment in the lab and the protocols emphasised to follow the programme: power-system telemetry and substation automation at Lake-Sumter, plant-floor control at Indian River.
Both public carriers list the course at 3 credits. Neither publishes contact hours. The guide uses 60 contact hours, Florida's convention for a 3-credit integrated C course, because the requested identifier is the C form.
| Institution | Number | Title | Credits | Contact hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake-Sumter State College | ETS 2550C | SCADA Systems | 3 | not published | Effective October 2025. Part of the Substation and Relay Technology specialization of the A.S. in Engineering Technology (with Duke Energy and SECO Energy). The college's course catalogue could not be read for this guide, so its prerequisite is unconfirmed. |
| Indian River State College | ETS 2550 | SCADA Systems | 3 | not published | Effective August 2026. Prerequisite ETS 2676 Introduction to Robotics, which itself follows ETS 2542 PLCs I. Lab fee $20, so the unsuffixed number still has laboratory work. |
The statewide course record names ETS 2544 (Programmable Logic Controllers II) as the prerequisite. Indian River names ETS 2676 (Introduction to Robotics) instead, which sits after PLCs I in its sequence. Lake-Sumter's prerequisite could not be confirmed. Lake-Sumter's own PLC II course, ETS 2544C Advanced PLCs, carries 2 credits there against 3 at Indian River. In every version, arrive able to program a PLC: SCADA supervises the controllers, so the course assumes you already understand them.
ETS 2556 Introduction to SCADA Cybersecurity (Northwest Florida State College, 3 credits) opens with the same statewide wording but adds identifying vulnerabilities, deploying mitigations and preventing breaches. It is a different number and a security-focused course; it does not substitute for ETS x550 in a degree audit, and the reverse is also true.
The statewide record gives ETS x550 guaranteed transfer to an institution offering the same course. Because only two public colleges offer it, a transferring student will often find no matching course at the receiving school; ask whether it can count as a technical elective in an automation, electrical or energy-technology programme. Both versions are career courses inside A.S. and certificate programmes, not general-education courses.
No industry certification is tied to this course. Students heading for control-system security work often go on to ISA/IEC 62443 certificate programmes or GIAC's industrial control system credentials (GICSP); those are later steps, not outcomes of this course.
AI tools are useful here for explaining protocols, drafting HMI tag lists and reading vendor documentation. Treat their output with particular care: a model can produce a confident but wrong register map, protocol setting or wiring description, and in a control system a wrong value acts on real equipment. Check every generated configuration against the vendor manual and test it on a trainer, never on live equipment.
Utilities and plants are also adding AI to the SCADA layer itself, for anomaly detection in historian data and predictive maintenance. The course's security topic applies directly: an AI service that reads plant data is one more connection into the control network, and segmentation and access rules apply to it like any other.
Generated November 2, 2026 · Updated November 2, 2026