ARGOS : ECOTèCNIA’S SCADA SYSTEM, WIND POWER PLANT MANAGEMENT

Montse Arias (ECOTÈCNIA, s.coop.c.l., Technological Innovation, Spain)

Alex De Broe, Spain (1) Pep Moreno, Spain (1) Marc Sala, Spain (1) Frieder Schuon, Spain (1) Claude Sibuet, Spain (1)
(1) ECOTÈCNIA, s.coop.c.l.

The challenge at hand for wind power is to evolve from an uncontrollable energy source to a wind-power-plant. This can be accomplished by adopting
standard operation procedures from conventional power plants. A very central role in this development is reserved for the wind farm SCADA system.
The SCADA system is the “brain” where the various control strategies to enhance the grid compatibility are implemented. It also serves as the central
gateway for reception of remote control inputs from and transmission of on-line data to the dispatching centres of the System Operator.

Ancillary Services: Primary and Tertiary Reserve, Power Curtailment

Ecotècnia’s wind-turbines are highly controllable electric power generators. Through pitch and torque control, he active power can be controlled with
great accuracy and a rapid response.

This control capacity is applied to implement ancillary services such as primary reserve or power curtailment.

Ancillary Services: Reactive Power Control

Ecotècnia’s wind turbines are capable of controlling their power factor in the 0.95 capacitive to 0.95inductive range with a very rapid response. The
wind farm SCADA system co-ordinates the reactive power control by sending reference values to all wind turbines and connecting the required
amount of capacitive compensation.

Wind Farm Output Power Prediction

Two features have been developed to relate the actual wind and power measurements with their forecasted estimations in an attempt to evaluate the
wind farm performance. On one hand, the production models used during the wind farm design phase have been incorporated to the daily updated
production database: NetFarms allowing for an objective evaluation of, f.ex., the operational losses in terms of energy instead of time. On the other
hand, both wind and production forecasts based on large-scale meteorological models (and its previous correlation with historical wind farm data) are
respectively used for mantenaince tasks planning and sell of production to the electricity market.
Wind Farm Communication Network
All Ecotècnia’s wind farms feature a communication network implemented as a 100 Base-FX Ethernet LAN, which is usually integrated in a wind farm
supervision WAN by means of satellite connection. A new enhanced network topology introduces overall redundancy for failure-tolerance, “Quality of
Service” and prioritisation of traffic, in order to assure a total reliability for essential commands and data, and warrant at a same time vigilance by
cameras and Voice over IP when required.
Ecotècnia’s SCADA “ARGOS” integrates substation and weather mast supervision by means of a self-developed system “ANEMONA” (ANemometric
and Electrical MONitorisation and Analyse). IEC-60870-5-101/104-compliant substation communication is used in order to exchange data with and
receive commands from the System Operator.
SCADA system Man-Machine Interface
Apart from the visualization of the existing functions of the SCADA system, new screens have been developed that give a clear overview of how the
various management systems of the wind farm are operating.