Iberdrola Ingeniería Chooses ARC Informatique’s PcVue Software for Control of Wind Farms

By DE Editors

Iberdrola Ingenieria has chosen ARC Informatique’s PcVue software to supervise and control modern wind power systems. According to the company, 24 PcVue servers are managing a million real-time variables. The solution implemented with the PcVue SCADA software has reduced maintenance costs while centralizing all the information from the remotely controlled plants.

Iberdrola Renovables produces electricity from renewable sources, in particular from wind power. Iberdrola Ingeniería y Construcción is an energy operations center at Toledo, near Madrid, that manages and remotely controls about 10 wind farms across all the regions of Spain. The firm handles project management, engineering, supply, construction, and operational support.

The company chose ARC Informatique´s PcVue software to make the information from the wind farms, especially alarms and historical data,  available remotely. The control system at each site samples the main operational data from the generators and the various substations. These systems are connected to the CORE (Iberdrola’s renewable energies operation center) via long-distance communication links. The CORE uses this data to identify and diagnose potential problems. Previously, each wind farm was monitored from one local SCADA station and the operators sent the data in by telephone. All the required data was saved to disk, which was then passed to whoever did the data recording.

For remote monitoring and remote control through a dedicated VSAT network, Iberdrola Renovables installed an OPC-based architecture with PcVue SCADA and several FrontVue light clients in the CORE.

PcVue and FrontVue are both Windows-based software packages capable of managing millions of I/O points online from thousand of devices. The PcVue-FrontVue SCADA system in the CORE has been implemented to provide the operators with all the required information regarding alarms from the turbines. Up to 2.5 million data items are monitored by the FrontVue client stations,  which communicate via OPC with the front end over a 1,000 Mbps redundant TCP/IP Ethernet network.

For more information, visit ARC Informatique.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.