CalWind Resources owns and operates a wind farm in Tehachapi, California that has been in operation many years. A new requirement to report data to the California Independent System Operator (ISO) means CalWind had to procure and install new measurement and communication equipment. Campbell Scientific equipment was chosen to meet those needs.

California ISO operates the wholesale power system in California, with the goal of providing higher transmission reliability while controlling costs. The ISO also acts as a key platform to hit the state’s clean-energy goals. To meet its goals and manage the power grid, California ISO requires renewable-energy generating facilities to report secure, real-time weather and power data.

For weather data measurements, a weather station based on a Campbell CR800 datalogger was installed on a permanent meteorological tower. The station measures wind speed and direction at two heights, as well as temperature, relative humidity, and barometric pressure.

A power meter elsewhere on the wind farm measures voltage, megawatts, and megaVARs. Typically, a remote intelligent gateway serves as the primary means for secure communication between generating facilities and California ISO’s energy management system. A CR1000 and NL200 are used in this system to provide the gateway. The CR1000 gathers the data from the weather station by a PakBus protocol and from the power meter by a DNP3 protocol. The NL200 works as a secure proxy server to provide DNP3 communications with California ISO.

Due to site constraints, a wireless IP network was implemented using IP radios to communicate between the remote gateway, the weather station, and the power meter. Data from the weather station and power meter are reported to the gateway, which acts as a data accumulator and as California ISO’s source for all weather and power data from the site.

Campbell Scientific

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