Case Study

Data Transmission from Wind Farm to

Distribution Center

Client/Project Background
Client:
Cavalum
Website:
www.cavalum.com/
Region:
Western Europe
Industry:
Electric power generation using
renewable sources

The Context
Cavalum is a private company founded in 1995, dedicated to promoting and developing
electrical energy production
using renewable resources. It is highly focused on creating eco-awareness and
sustained progress.

Cavalum engages in the promotion and development of electrical energy production

using renewable resources.Renewable energy sources include hydro, wind,
photovoltaic, biomass and thermosolar. Cavalum also licenses its renewable energy
operations. The company is based in Portugal and was founded in 1995.

The renewables-based energy production promoter needed their wind farm project
to be able to communicate with their Distribution System Operator’s SCADA system
using the IEC 104 protocol.

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The Need
Cavalum had embarked on a wind farm project, Norte dos
Candeeiros, about 120 km north of Lisbon, Portugal. This wind
farm is expected to produce 28 gigawatt hours of electricity
annually. The wind farm had to be connected to the Distribution
System Operator (DSO)’s (EDP Distribuição) Dispatch Center
using the IEC 104 protocol to ensure compatibility with the DSO’s
SCADA system. Other DSO requirements included automatic
upload of fault records from Interconnection Protection Relay
(IPR) in COMTRADE format as well as sending the fault records
to the DSO’s protection system department’s IT system via File
Transfer Protocol (FTP). Cavalum was looking for a provider
that could deliver a technical solution that met the DSO’s
requirements. Cavalum needed a single equipment solution that
was compact due to space limitations, and a cost effective one.
Kalkitech’s Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) SYNC 2101 was chosen
to achieve these goals.
Solution
This project saw Kalkitech partnering with QEnergia, a Portugal
based marketer of components and systems in the fields of
industrial automation and buildings, equipment for checking
electrical installations, power management and surge protection.
Kalkitech supplied a wall cubicle housing a SYNC 2101
RTU and a CISCO 3G router to be installed at the Norte dos
Candeeiros wind farm. SYNC 2101 RTU implements IEC104
slave profile with a broad spectrum of available Application
Service Data Units (ADSU), ensuring full compatibility with the
DSO’s Dispatch Center’s SCADA system. This was a major
requirement from the DSO. Information exchanged comprised
of analogue measurements (voltage, active and reactive power),
digital signals (Interconnection Protection Relay Trip and active
settings group, breaker status, auxiliary power failure, etc.)
and commands (protection relay settings group exchange).
Analogue information (measurements) was collected directly
from Interconnection Protection Relay (GE F650) via MODBUS
TCP protocol whereas digital signals and commands relied on
hard-wired connections to substation secondary systems. The
total number of signals exchanged with DSO’s Dispatch Center
corresponded to 12 Inputs/Outputs.
VPN via Mobile Network
VPN via Mobile Network
Interconnection Protection
GE F650
WAN IP Address
DHCP
APN
EDPTCMT
Ethernet
Router
MODBUS TCP
CISCO C819HG
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“The Address”, 17/1, 4th Floor, Kadubeesanahalli,
Outer Ring Road, Bangalore 560103, India
Telephone: +91-80670 21900 | Email: sales@kalkitech.com
The hard wired acquisition of data was possible due to the fact
that SYNC RTU comes with a fair number of Digital Inputs,
Analogue Inputs and Digital Outputs making it flexible enough
to meet the requirements of different integration scenarios, and
eliminating the need for separate PLC / acquisition modules.
Another major requirement from the DSO was automatic retrieval
of fault records. This would eliminate the need for the maintenance
crew to periodically visit the windfarm to manually retrieve fault
records from Interconnection Protection Relay. The uploading
of fault records from Interconnection Protection Relay was done
using the MODBUS TCP protocol with SYNC 2101 RTU doing
the conversion of records to COMTRADE normalized format.
The files were named according to IEEE naming conventions.
Time synchronization was also part of the solution. SYNC RTU
was synchronized using IEC104 protocol and Interconnection
Protection Relay was synchronized using MODBUS TCP
protocol. The information sent by SYNC RTU to the Dispatch
Center was time-tagged correctly and so were the Fault Record
files. This was critical for post Fault Analysis procedures. The
solution included file transfer to a remote FTP server.
SYNC RTU implemented FTP client functionality thus enabling
a scheduler based replication of Fault Record files (temporarily
stored on SYNC’s flash memory) to a remote folder. Fault Record
files are now always available to DSO’s protection engineers
to conduct Fault Analysis. They no longer have to wait for
time consuming manual fault retrievals. The wind farm is now
connected to the distribution center in accordance with DSO’s
requirements.
The solution helped achieve the following:
• Eliminate the need for the maintenance crew to periodically
visit the wind farm site to manually retrieve fault records
• DSO’s protection engineers have near-time access to Fault
Record files to conduct Fault Analysis rather than wait for time
consuming manual fault retrievals.
• Time stamp on Fault record files is available for post Fault
Analysis procedures
• The solution provides real time monitoring and helps to
identify location of fault areas remotely, reducing
• fault detection times, improving service quality and reducing
costs.
Engineering Center
Dispatch EDP Distribution
Remote Terminal Unit
Kalkitech SYNC 2101
Ethernet
MODBUS TCP
IEC104
SFTP
Digital Digital
Inputs Outputs
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