Success Story: Optimizing Distributed Wind Power Assets’ Data

Overview

Ever since India deregulated power generation in 1991 and power transmission in 1998, it has witnessed a steady influx of private Power Companies eager to set up power plants across the country.

Our client, a major private Wind Power Producer, had established a large distributed asset base of 100+ Wind Parks across India with a total power generation capacity exceeding 4000 MW.

Meticulously built over the years, these distributed wind power assets included a diverse range of Substations with conventional as well as modern Substation Automation Systems (SAS).

Client Need

As is the case with almost all distributed assets, our client was facing the daunting challenge of consolidating their scattered assets’ data in a centralized location.

To ensure seamless synchronization with State and Central Power Grids, our client was keen to create a robust National Asset Monitoring Centre (NAMC) that would act as the nerve centre of all system operations by holistically collecting, processing and storing crucial data from their far-flung Wind Parks and Substations. 

SCOPE was given the mandate to integrate the data of all the Wind Parks – including the data of individual Wind Turbines and develop a state-of-the-art NAMC with a fully equipped Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Control Centre that included the requisite software, database and network architecture.

Our Solution

After a detailed study of the client’s exact requirements and expectations, our team carried out a site survey and a cohesive two-pronged approach was adopted to present a unified solution.

Approach 1 – Solution for NAMC at Pune, India

At the NAMC, we deployed our ‘SCOPE Action.NET SCADA’ that was capable of seamlessly handling over 120,000 data points. A giant screen console to monitor the real-time data of every single asset along with dedicated work terminals for configuration, modification and active monitoring of the integrated database were installed. For seamless time synchronization with Substations in remote Wind Parks, advanced GPS systems were installed and the entire communication was done through dedicated Leased Line Connectivity  over IEC 60870-5-104 protocol.

Approach 2 – Solution for Wind Parks spread across India

For automating the Substations in the Wind Parks, we deployed our ‘SCOPE Action.NET SCADA’ as SAS along with ‘Vizimax RightWon Plus’ Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) for larger Substations and ‘Vizimax RTU’ with inbuilt LDMS for smaller Substations. Various other sensors and transducers were installed for optimal data collection from multiple Wind Turbines.

To ensure seamless integration of accurate weather data, communicable transducers were installed in the larger Wind Parks. Integration of the Wind Turbine Generator (WTG) data with the Substation data was facilitated via OPC protocol at the NAMC’s SCADA.

Existing, and in some cases new, Availability Based Tariff (ABT) Meters were used to acquire energy data and transmit to the NAMC’s SCADA over IEC 60870-5-101/104 protocols.

Benefits

By cohesively centralizing the scattered assets’ data at the NAMC, our client was not only able to analyze every data point minutely to derive actionable insights but also significantly reduce their manpower expense towards the operations and maintenance of the Substations.

Some of the crucial insights that our client succeeded in obtaining are:

1. Real-time collection and monitoring of all power data

2. Real-time information on the condition (healthy/faulty) and availability (idle/productive) of every Wind Turbine

3. Comprehensive power data (voltage, frequency, power, etc.) at every level – WTG, Feeder, Substation, State and National level

4. Energy Loss data – WTG to Feeder, Transformer’s Primary to Secondary, etc.

5. Exhaustive weather data like wind speed, wind direction, ambient temperature, barometric pressure, air density, relative humidity, etc., across all Wind Parks

6. Periodic (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or as per the desired date range) energy production data with the minimum, maximum and average values of the power exported/sold to State Grid.

Summing Up

With the Govt. of India aggressively pushing Low Carbon and Green Energy technologies to satisfy the country’s growing demand for sustainable energy, the penetration of Renewable Energy (RE) in the Indian power ecosystem is expected to increase from the current 20% to 35% by 2022.

As an increasing number of large scale Wind and Solar power plants mushroom across the country, multiple State/Regional RE Control Centres become a necessity to efficiently schedule and dispatch the distributed RE power.

In dynamic times such as these, captive Asset Management Centres play a pivotal role in helping Power Companies seamlessly integrate and participate in efficient grid management by seamlessly providing their energy forecast data to Grid Control Centres and Energy Exchanges.

To learn how SCOPE can assist Power Companies in optimizing their distributed assets’ data, please email us at marketing@scopetnm.com and we will get back to you in a jiffy.