Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Access to key O&M data by use of IEC 61400-25

Availability of online and historical data is a prerequisite for effective operation and maintenance (O&M) of wind power plants. This is where the standard series IEC 61400-25 "Wind turbines – Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants" comes in. IEC 61400-25 is mainly an extension of the definitions of IEC 61850. A substation does not have a rotor - obviously. So we had to add a model for the rotor with WROT as the standard Logical Node and WROT.RotSpd as the data object for the rotor speed. Where ever a rotor of a wind mill turns it could be modeled as WROT.RotSpd. Since the publication of the standard series there is no need for vendor specific communication solutions and no need for myriads of Excel or Word tables of signal lists that specify the rotor speed with some kind of an index. What does "A2839" mean? May be it is the rotor speed of a turbine running in Buxtehude" - who knows. Of course it takes some time to have the standard implemented ... a couple of IEC 61400-25 conformant products are already available.

According to a presentation at the the European Offshore Wind 2009 Conference & Exhibition, 14 – 16 September, Stockholm (Sweden): "Vattenfall, Statkraft and DONG Energy have all included the IEC 61400-25 series in their requirements specifications. Support for the standard is one of the evaluation criteria for the delivery of new wind power plants."

Click HERE for the poster presented in Stockholm.
Click HERE for a paper on the subject.
Click HERE for a presentation.

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