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Contributions by Automation Technology

to Improve the Overall Availability of Offshore Wind Parks
Vaheh Khachatouri, Jrgen Malin

Bachmann electronic GmbH

Abstract

Test Configuration

The remote locations and harsh environmental conditions of offshore wind parks
imply new requirements in regard of the communication capabilities of wind
turbines and wind park controllers. In this poster we describe a recently introduced
solution that has been specially developed for the integration of large numbers of
distributed power generation units into the power grid. The introduced solution is
characterized by the ability of building redundant automation systems and
redundant communication networks in order to increase the availability of offshore
wind parks.

Picture 2 shows the test bed topology which was used to verify the attributes of the
protocol mentioned before. The network devices are standard devices which can
be found in distributed energy applications like wind parks.

bluecom Communication Protocol for Distributed Power Generation

The grid code requirements placed on wind parks to respond to the power grid like
a single conventional power station requires the use of a central wind park
controller. Particularly the requirements regarding the reactive power involve
processes lasting anything from tenths of a second to up to a few seconds, rapid
control and thus a very high communication speed between the individual wind
turbines and the higher-level wind farm controller are required. bluecom, recently
developed by Bachmann electronic, is offering a communication solution that has
been specifically optimized with regard to the particular requirements of futureproof energy systems with extremely high availability requirements.

The topology itself shows the star variant of an energy park which is the worst case
regarding to network and master CPU load. The MH controller (left side, middle) is
the non redundant park master which aggregates all data and controls all
substations.
Each of the eight subnets consists of six controllers from different types /
performance classes. On each of these controllers run up to nine instances of the
slave application resulting in 432 real-time connections to the master at most.

Picture 2: 1 Master is connected to 48 physical slave stations via two level cascade of industrial switches
which build up six groups.

Test Results
Table 1 shows the results of the test series which measured the impact on the
master CPU load with different numbers of slave devices.

Picture 1: The Parkmaster optionally redundant connects a non real-time (upper part grey background)
and a real-time network (lower part - green). The topology shown is one example for the connection between
several energy park substations. Compatible topologies are: star, bus, (open) ring and mixed versions.
Distances between stations: 10 m 2000 m. Transmission media consists of copper or fibre-optic.

The prime objective of the transmission protocol design was to maintain the
stability of the grid by enabling energy parks and virtual power stations consisting
of a large number of decentralized power generation plants to respond quickly. At
the same time it should allow for the constraints imposed by existing structures and
the principle of system openness.
The basis for the system specification consists of the relevant processes required
for the communication network for the creation, dynamic expansion and the safe
and efficient operation of decentralized systems for renewable power generation:
Ethernet compliance
The transmission protocol is based on conventional Ethernet technology and
provides affordable and easy to implement communication for fast and reliable
information exchange in real time.
Real-time capability
The design specification surpasses the requirement for networking 250 stations in
a free network topology with the bidirectional transfer of 250 bytes in a real-time
cycle of 20 ms.
Dynamic expandability
The transmission protocol enables stations and entire network segments to be
added during real-time operation without any interruptions.
High availability
Simple and also later upgrading of communication networks by using the
redundancy product line.
Serviceability
Monitoring and diagnostics of the network state and rapid localization of faults
without additional requirements through integrated diagnostic and monitoring
interfaces.

Measured values:
- CPU load with three approaches
+ raw protocol: direct communication on protocol level (synthetic test)
+ getData/setData: simplest usage of application interface (C/C++)
+ application: standard application using the C/C++ API
- network load overall (protocol + headers, CRCs, )
- jitter: the variation on answer times in percent
Diagram 1 shows the three test runs to measure the CPU load.
MH212
(250 byte data transfer bidirectional, cycle time 32ms)
number
cpu load
network
jitter
of
raw
getData/ appliload
slaves protocol setData cation
[Mbit/s]
48
0%
1%
5%
3,00
1,87%
96
0%
3%
11%
7,00
2,81%
144
0%
5%
17%
11,00
4,68%
192
2%
7%
22%
15,00
6,25%
240
3%
9%
28%
19,00
9,06%
288
4%
11%
33%
23,00 11,87%
336
4%
13%
39%
27,00 14,06%
384
5%
15%
45%
31,00 15,00%
432
6%
17%
50%
27,00 16,56%

Table 1: Master CPU load measurements

Diagram 1: Master CPU load with different load types

The results are in accordance with the expected linear behavior of the protocol
versus the number of slaves. More then 400 slaves with 250 byte bidirectional data
transfer can be connected within a total cycle time of 32ms without pushing the
controller or the network to their limits. Other tests showed that more then 200
slaves can be connected in 10ms cycle time (250byte bidirectional) or more than
100 slaves in 5ms.
The values for raw protocol below 144 slaves are beyond the measuring
inaccuracy.
Summary
The test results proved that the bluecom communication protocol fulfills all known
requirements for centralized closed-loop wind park control systems in regard of the
possible data traffic due to the LVRT and FRT regulations.

EWEA OFFSHORE 2011, 29 November 1 December 2011 , Amsterdam, The Netherlands