Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas was looking for a smarter distributed control system (DCS) that would help lower the material cost of turbines and reduce operating costs for utilities. Wind turbine control systems are often a complex mix of fieldbus and point-to-point networks, with safety and control functions physically separated. This can lead to expensive integration, higher material costs, and limited access to data from critical systems.
TTTech’s High Availability DCS, chosen by Vestas, is based on a deterministic Ethernet and was chosen to address its control challenges.
TTTech’s High Availability DCS is based on a deterministic ethernet and was chosen to address such challenges. TTTech offers control devices with integrated safety features, and deterministic Ethernet switches and NICs that allow convergence of different traffic classes on one wire. These elements are brought together by TTTech into a high availability system architecture which means faults can be isolated while the system continues to run as normal.
The DCS resulted in an overall reduction in components and system complexity. Safety certification was also made easier by the IEC 61508 certifiable products provided by TTTech. The high availability system architecture will lead to improved turbine uptime and productivity for utilities.
“TTTech’s state of the art solution provides integrated safety and precision in control that helps to reduce the overall Levelized Cost of Energy,” said Jorge Magalhaes Senior Vice President at Vestas Wind Systems. The advanced architecture lets the turbine remain operational even in the presence of faults, thus increasing uptime and electricity production levels.
Key benefits include:
- Reduced system complexity and cost due to integrated safety and control
- Improved turbine uptime with high-availability architecture
- Support for predictive maintenance and other smart turbine andpark functions
- Ready for Industry 4.0 with standard Ethernet technology
- Easier safety certification with IEC 61508 certifiable switches, controllers and boards
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