In Control of Your Wind Farms
The control room is the heart of our wind farm management. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we are here monitoring your wind farm, thus being able to react at any time to disturbances and unforeseeable events. The scope of services of our control room comprises different components – from operations monitoring to breakdown and maintenance management through to energy trading.
Monitoring of Operations online 24/7 worldwide
Monitoring of operations includes technical responsibility for the ongoing operation of the turbines and associated infrastructure. Remote data monitoring is made by means of manufacturer-independent software and hardware through which the turbines, including communication facilities, are continuously checked for smooth operation. Communication links are of particular importance, since in the case of a failure no substantiated statement can be made on the status of the turbines to be monitored. The control room is continuously manned in a 3-shift system and serves as a direct contact point for the turbine manufacturer, the energy suppliers and various service companies. This ensures that all incoming information will be recorded centrally and processed accordingly.
Incidents Management
One very important working stage of the control room is handling error and malfunction messages and the subsequent communication with service companies. All incoming data from the turbine monitored via the communication link are initially classified in accordance with the following criteria:
- Standstill signals
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- Automatic error acknowledgment
- Error acknowledgment via telecontrol engineering
- Manual error acknowledgment
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- Alarm signals
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- Mission-critical
- Not mission-critical
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- Deviations in performance behaviour
After classification, the different incidents are prioritized and a processing sequence is defined. Prioritization considers system-specific parameters such as turbine type, rated output, wind speed at the location and the resulting yield loss. Contractual issues may also be included when defining priorities. Malfunctions are remedied in close coordination with the respective service companies. Initially checks are made to see whether the system can be reset and started through the service provider’s telecontrol. If on-site work is required, the control room is responsible for coordinating the deployment of service companies at the turbines. By considering weather forecasts, avoidable yield losses caused by waiting time or additional costs due to weekend bonuses may be prevented.
Maintenance Management
The control room is also responsible for coordinating planned and unplanned downtime. Again, the objective is to minimize yield losses – caused, for example, by maintenance work, experts‘ reports or repair work dependent on the weather.
Grid Management
In the case of foreseeable interruptions to the operation of the turbines or the wind farm in the course of grid shutdowns by the energy supplier, the control room coordinates timely shutdown of the turbines/wind farm and informs affected third parties. It also coordinates re-start-up after such action.
Load Management
The regulation calls made by the grid/transmission operator in the course of load management are documented and verified. This is followed by calculation of yield losses in accordance with flatrate or peak accounting method based on the guideline of EEG load management of the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur).
Energy Trading
The first level will inform the respective energy trader of downtimes in case there is a standstill of the turbines or wind farm, in accordance with the agreement between the client and the energy trader.
