Ethernet Switch Solution for Wind Power Plant Monitoring

Wind energy is a green and sustainable way to provide power and is still gaining its importance nowadays. The US Department of Energy had released a report which states that by 2050, more than one third of nations electricity will be provided by wind

Wind energy is a green and sustainable way to provide power and is still gaining its importance nowadays. The US Department of Energy had released a report which states that by 2050, more than one third of nations electricity will be provided by wind power.

However, designing an efficient network can be challenging. Wind farms often located in remote locations and covers hundreds of square meters with wind turbines scattered in it. Therefore, a well-functioned network topology can reduce the use and cost of cables. Also, Redundant Ethernet networks are important. Fast recovery time can ensure nonstop data communication. Lastly, devices must be able to endure harsh environment.

A wind farm in Taiwan has chosen Korenix for remote monitoring the turbines. An unmanaged switch is installed atop of the turbine to transmit data to the base by optical fiber. The managed Ethernet switches allow the widely dispersed turbine to connect each other by forming redundant ring. With the MSR redundancy technology, the ring ensures uninterrupted data transmission in a large wind farm with less than 20ms recovery.

The switches further uplink the high-bandwidth data to a managed Layer3 switch installed in the control room. The Layer 3 switch is chosen by the network system constructor for its complete layer 3 functions to manage routing between different IP subnets and extended groups. Moreover, traffic from different rings can be transmitted to control center. It also supports Access Control List, the SCADA or other systems. The control station can be secured by allowing only the permitted users listed in ACL to access the systems, resulting safer network connectivity.

With Korenix’s complete networking solutions, integrators are now capable of remote controlling the wind turbines while providing real-time, efficient data transmission.