How To Network A Wind Farm

Chinese manufacturer Dongfang Steam Turbine Works (DSTW) was working on a wind farm project of 66, 1.5-MV turbines and had to establish a SCADA system to remotely monitor on-site equipment and operations while recording operation data for real-time analysis. To make matters worse, Northeast China’s harsh weather called for rugged and reliable networking devices.

The company also decided the system needed network redundancy with a fast recovery for system reliability, and at least three fiber-optic ports for uplink and long distance outbound transmissions. In addition, network-management software had to monitor and manage the system without undue complexity.

After sufficient evaluation, the Chinese engineers selected MOXA/s rack mount managed industrial Ethernet switches an excellent fit for their network infrastructure requirements.

Moxa engineers suggested installing one industrial Ethernet switch (EDS-208A-M-SC) atop each wind turbine to connect to the equipment inside the turbine. This switch connects to another switch (EDS-408A-2S1M-ST-T) at the bottom of the turbine by a fiber optic port. The switch comes with three fiber optic ports, one of which is the uplink connection to the EDS-208A and the other two connect to adjacent wind turbines.

Due to high security and availability requirements, the company used a ring topology in the wind-farm network for fast redundancy in case of network failure. The control center uses Moxa’s rackmount managed industrial Ethernet switches (IKS-6726) to connect field switches with the SCADA system and network management servers. MXview 1.0 network management software then helps operators monitor network status by automatically discovering the network topology and displaying real-time alarm information. The software supports SNMP V1, V2c, and V3, and presents historical traffic statistics and event logs for troubleshooting. The equipment is rated for -40 to 75°C.

Moxa Industrial Network Solutions
www.Moxa.com

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