Requirement :
Traditionally Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) implementations for wind mills in a wind farm were based on RS485 network running on copper wires. The networks were highly unstable since the distance between the wind mills were huge and also the wind mills were installed in very difficult terrain like hills, forests, etc., The scada network required a lot of maintenance time. Additionally, Copper wires are expensive and are prone to:
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Lightning strikes – resulting in large tracts of damaged copper wire and the end terminal equipment at the central site as well as the Turbine side. Only a replacement of the equipments and the copper wire would bring back the network.
Solution :
Melange wireless communicators were deployed on the turbines to provide a stable and trouble free communication network. The units were installed on the turbines.
All the above problems were brushed away by the wireless solution. The maintenance team could now concentrate on maximizing power generation rather than waste time on maintaining the network.
Benefits:
- Reliable communication solution