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Ethernet networking in renewable energy

Network switch and ethernet cable in rack

As homes and businesses become more energy conscious, solar power is the obvious choice to reduce reliance on traditional sources of electricity.

Global political and economic initiatives are driving the demand for alternative power sources. In fact, solar power continues to be the leader amongst other renewable energy sources and according to the IEA will dominate growth in the next five years.

With significant economic powers such as India, China and the EU focusing heavily on the expansion of renewable energy, solar power will undoubtedly become one of the primary energy sources of the future.

But while it’s true that sunlight and solar power produce electricity, behind the scenes is the latest in industrial networking equipment. Ethernet networking is the innovative way to achieve efficient communications across an entire system of renewable energy.

Today, device servers, Ethernet I/O modules and other forms of specialised communication devices are taking full advantage of renewable energy to achieve optimal efficiency and productivity.

Modern green city powered only by renewable energy sources

Why Ethernet networking matters for renewable energy

A solar power plant consists of a sophisticated infrastructure working in perfect sync to maximise potential electricity production. Primary components include solar panels, inverters, solar controllers and transmission or energy storage systems.

This means the performance of solar power plants must be closely monitored to ensure maximum productivity and availability, and the electricity generation rate is within acceptable values to satisfy the project ROI schedule.

Remote monitoring is essential to scheduled maintenance, such as part replacement or solar panel cleaning, and is required for the power plant to maximise long-term performance. And because solar power plants are mostly located in remote areas, remote locations pose a challenge for remote monitoring connectivity. Wired Internet sources are rarely available at solar power production plant locations.

Engineering the appropriate industrial network infrastructure is vital to ensure the reliability for a mission-critical installation in renewable energy. Hardware with strong redundancy and backup mechanisms is the fundamental starting point for ensuring Ethernet reliability across applications such as wind turbines and solar energy farms.

Another major factor is the management of the Ethernet traffic itself. While simple unmanaged switches can be used to segment networks, managed switches offer far more flexibility and power to influence performance of the network as a whole. Industrial-grade managed switches that leverage the latest monitoring technology and a well-thought-out topology would be the way to go for solar installations.

Managed switches, for example, make it possible to implement redundant topologies such as STP, RSTP, Ring and Chain, SNMP, quality of service (QoS), IGMP snooping, data logs and other functions that ensure efficient, secure and reliable handling of network traffic.

Wind turbines placed on a big field

Industrial Ethernet networking for wind farm networks

By its very nature, wind is unpredictable. So getting the most out of it is highly dependent on effective monitoring and control. And as wind turbines continue to become larger, more powerful, efficient and sophisticated, the various components used within each turbine require reliable industrial networking back to a centralised control system.

To achieve an efficient and stable communications architecture, wind farm operators are increasingly standardising on Ethernet for their industrial networking. As wind farms typically cover large areas, Ethernet offers the ideal networking technology to establish a communication link between the turbines and the control facility.

Ethernet provides wide support for many of a wind turbine’s sensors and control devices, the lowest cost base for network infrastructure and ease of upgradeability as control and monitoring requirements evolve.

Other industrial Ethernet products used for wind turbines include high port count and rack mounted switches, as well as edge-of-network devices. Industrial serial routers should combine the features of a serial device server, Ethernet switch and IP router in a single product.

Industrially hardened link converters to convert serial copper to fibre, and modern Ethernet terminal servers providing high configurability, reliability and functionality are also in the industrial Ethernet product mix.

OSA - The solar farm with engineers is checking the operation of the system

Large solar energy farms

At a solar generating plant, multiple dishes or panels in numbers of hundreds to thousands line the fields to catch the sun for optimal energy production. By deploying a managed switch at each solar generator, monitoring diagnostics and maintaining these assets should be a relatively simple matter, but network configuration can be tedious and difficult.

Standard copper Ethernet, although popular and inexpensive, has a limited application due to its 100m maximum segment length. Deployment of long copper cables may also create problems through interference from electromagnetic fields from high power switching inverters, an essential part of the installation.

But switches with fibre ports as well as copper ports allow a structural network based on fibre, while local devices are connected over short and shielded copper cables that are not so susceptible to electromagnetic noise.

Fibre ports also offer a very long connection, with a typical maximum distance of 2km for a 100Mbps multi-mode port. If this distance is not sufficient, a switch with single mode ports can also be deployed, offering distances starting at 30km and extending up to 120km.

TRB140

Remote monitoring of solar power plants with Teltonika

With Teltonika’s TRB140, customers have access to a simplified classic remote monitoring solution with a cellular connectivity device at its core. The solar controller is a brain of solar power plant operation and is generally capable of outputting system data via industrial
protocols, such as Modbus TCP.

Depending on the size of the solar power plant, numerous solar charge controllers are set up to track electricity generation data from a set of solar panels. The best way to interpret this data is to use a cloud IoT platform where the data is aggregated and presented to the operator with performance metrics and suggested maintenance insights.

TRB140 is a popular choice for this use thanks to its secure and reliable cellular connectivity via 4G LTE and easy to use user interface, which requires no specialised training. Moreover, TRB140 includes advanced RutOS features, such as multiple VPN services, industrial networking and remote management protocols (Modbus TCP, MQTT and more).

Plus, the TRB140 offers multiple benefits including:

  • Easy to scale – you can configure an infinite number of TRB140 in minutes using Teltonika Remote Management System (RMS).
  • Low-power – TRB140 uses only 2W of power when transferring data at maximum speeds and only 0.4 W when idle with an active data connection.
  • Easy management – with Teltonika RMS you can keep all TRBs up to date with the newest firmware and conveniently monitor and control the gateways from anywhere – even without Public IP!
  • Industrial design – TRB140 has a strong aluminium casing, wide range of supported power supply voltage (9-30 VDC) and a wide operating temperature range of -40 °C to 75 °C, making it an ideal choice even in most challenging environments.

Teltonika Networks continuously focus on developing mission-critical connectivity hardware that is secure, reliable and easy to use. TRB140 is a simple yet powerful cellular gateway and is capable of addressing all connectivity challenges in solar energy generation projects.

Teltonika is proud to be part of OSA’s select group of world-leading vendors who work in partnership with OSA to deliver enhanced reliability and 100% quality, across a range of market verticals.

Two male electrician workers in reflective vests

OSA’s industrial networking capabilities

With the use of Integrated IP Video Surveillance and Advanced Analytics solutions, combined with our highly rated and reliable industrial networking capabilities, OSA provides world class consultation and solutions for the most challenging applications.

Our wide portfolio of technology providers can deliver first class IP Video Surveillance customised to meet our customers’ requirements. One of our most recent applications on a solar farm involved designing a fibre optic Layer 1 solution and industrial rated passive network subject to the harshest of Queensland’s environment.

With the use of Thermal and Optical imaging cameras, we provided protection to the perimeter of the facility using analytics to identify humans and ignore the native wildlife such as kangaroos, iguanas, wild pigs and dogs. We were able to distribute the video footage to the head office control centre so the appropriate actions could then be taken from the client.

Contact us today for more information on our range of industrial networking Ethernet products.

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