The New Control Platform
kk-electronic has been an active participant in the wind power industry since its early days and we have been able to influence the development of the industry with our products and innovations. Our first control system (in 1978) gave the ability to connect to the grid, and since then five generations of products have refined and optimised the performance of control systems and wind turbines. The newest solution from kk-electronic – the ‘C’ control platform – was introduced in April 2012. This new control platform breaks with traditional thinking about control systems, since it adds several new dimensions to the product category.
By Erik Gammelgaard, Marketing Manager, kk-electronic, Denmark
Furthermore, the ‘C’ is an advanced, modular and highly flexible concept, which makes customisation easy. Bringing a new product to the market always creates a certain scepticism among market participants: ‘Is it performing the way they say?’, ‘Is it safe enough to install in a wind turbine?’, and ‘Are we going to become a test bed for kk-electronic?’. kk-electronic was aware of such considerations when drawing up the specifications for the development project, and therefore the company took the only logical step: at the same time as introducing the ‘C’ platform we also made available documentation to demonstrate the viability, reliability and availability of the new control solution.
The kk-electronic Wind Turbine
Towards the end of 2011 kk-electronic started the final stage of the development project. The company acquired a 2MW wind turbine sited on the west coast of Denmark with ample access to wind resources. This turbine had been in operation for approximately five years, and therefore historical performance data was available. The wind turbine was purchased in order to test our ‘C’ modules in a real-life situation. But it is also used for other testing purposes and is therefore not classified as a production turbine. By the end of November we started to dismantle the existing control system of the Vestas V80 turbine, and the installation of the ‘C’ control platform started in December (Figure 1). Two weeks of concentrated work ended on 16 December, when we restarted the wind turbine, and – as promised by our engineering team – the wind turbine produced electricity again.
The kk-electronic wind turbine (Figure 2) is equipped with the following kk-electronic products:
kk-electronic’s team of engineers, service technicians and developers took full responsibility for the refurbishing of the electrical system, and the re-commissioning of the turbine.
Re-commissioning
The status of the wind turbine was changed into a ‘test turbine’ as we bought it, and that gave us the opportunity to modify it according to our purposes. The objective of kk-electronic was to ensure that the ‘C’ platform could perform as scoped in the development projects. kk-electronic’s objectives were to develop a control platform with:
Turbine Performance
The re-commissioning was divided into three stages: first going up to an output of 1MW, then 1.5MW and finally at nominal effect, 2MW. This sequence was chosen to ensure adequate time for learning and optimisation of the system integration and to avoid serious errors. Consequently, the power curve diagram (Figure 3) includes these three different datasets.
Recently, we started a 30-day test without other test projects. In this way we can observe how the turbine is running ‘when not tampered with all the time’. This is to test our controller running continuously and to ensure that our application software can manage the turbine in the correct and safe way. Figures 4, 5 and 6 illustrate the wind speed, availability and production figures for the test period, which started on 30 June 2012. As can be seen, there has not been a lot of wind and hence full production has not yet been achieved. Availability is top-notch, with the exception of two incidents: the first dive was due to a converter trip that was quickly rectified, the second dive was due to a faulty transformer fan that stopped the turbine. (This fan is currently being exchanged.) The control system and the converter have performed outstandingly well in all cases and the turbine is now running with a daily availability of higher than 99%.
Advanced Controls
Wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger in order to maximise energy output, and this trend makes increasing demands on the control system. Control engineers must develop new controls to maximise energy capture and reduce loads in order to prevent damage to turbines and possible system failures.
The ‘C’ software is a step forward in control system engineering but adds a new dimension by adding a '6th sense technology'. 6th sense is a framework of methods and functionalities in the wind turbine controller that combines models with knowledge of the past and present in order to predict the future wind turbine behaviour, and then provides control based on this prediction. Data accessibility, analysis and pattern detection combined with a Turbine Optimising Tool Chain (TOTC) will provide the customers with predictive models giving more stable operational conditions and a big boost to creating a proactive maintenance plan (to lower maintenance costs).
The ‘C’ platform has anticipated this trend and consequently ‘C’ is much more than just a controller. The individual parts of ‘C’ make a complete concept, which enables users to simulate, test and verify diverse control schemes. The purpose is, of course, to optimise the performance of wind turbines in relation to loads in all kinds of wind conditions (Figure 7). As an extra result, ‘C’ might improve the structural integrity of the turbine, which again might reduce the over-dimensioning of the construction. This will, in turn, allow reductions in capital investment and increase the return on investment of wind turbines.
Biography of the Author
Erik Gammelgaard has a Masters degree in marketing and an additional GMP-degree from CEDEP/Fontainebleau. He also has 25 years of experience working with internationally operating companies in the business-to-business markets. He has been with kk-electronic for five years and aims to help make the company a genuine source of control technology for the industry.{/access}
kk-electronic has been an active participant in the wind power industry since its early days and we have been able to influence the development of the industry with our products and innovations. Our first control system (in 1978) gave the ability to connect to the grid, and since then five generations of products have refined and optimised the performance of control systems and wind turbines. The newest solution from kk-electronic – the ‘C’ control platform – was introduced in April 2012. This new control platform breaks with traditional thinking about control systems, since it adds several new dimensions to the product category.By Erik Gammelgaard, Marketing Manager, kk-electronic, Denmark
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The new ‘C’ controls, regulates, operates and reports like traditional control systems, but it is also a data acquisition system, a system for measuring and analysing, a development and simulation tool, and a test and commissioning tool. By adding these new functionalities we introduced a solution that various members of an organisation (including CEOs, CFOs, sales staff, operators and service and development engineers) can use.Furthermore, the ‘C’ is an advanced, modular and highly flexible concept, which makes customisation easy. Bringing a new product to the market always creates a certain scepticism among market participants: ‘Is it performing the way they say?’, ‘Is it safe enough to install in a wind turbine?’, and ‘Are we going to become a test bed for kk-electronic?’. kk-electronic was aware of such considerations when drawing up the specifications for the development project, and therefore the company took the only logical step: at the same time as introducing the ‘C’ platform we also made available documentation to demonstrate the viability, reliability and availability of the new control solution.
The kk-electronic Wind Turbine
Towards the end of 2011 kk-electronic started the final stage of the development project. The company acquired a 2MW wind turbine sited on the west coast of Denmark with ample access to wind resources. This turbine had been in operation for approximately five years, and therefore historical performance data was available. The wind turbine was purchased in order to test our ‘C’ modules in a real-life situation. But it is also used for other testing purposes and is therefore not classified as a production turbine. By the end of November we started to dismantle the existing control system of the Vestas V80 turbine, and the installation of the ‘C’ control platform started in December (Figure 1). Two weeks of concentrated work ended on 16 December, when we restarted the wind turbine, and – as promised by our engineering team – the wind turbine produced electricity again.
The kk-electronic wind turbine (Figure 2) is equipped with the following kk-electronic products:
- Control system, consisting of the CM60, PS60, TS60 – the basic elements of the kk-electronic ‘C’ control system.
- Data acquisition logger to ensure proper data collection.
- KK-PILOT, a SCADA level 1 system, to ensure proper data analyses. It is also a tool for optimisation.
- Customised converter, 2MW DFIG solution.
- Grid measuring unit, GM60 and a rebuilt grid connection.
- Added custom instrumentation. A variety of instrumentation was added to allow a high degree of flexibility in the type of control algorithm that can be implemented.
kk-electronic’s team of engineers, service technicians and developers took full responsibility for the refurbishing of the electrical system, and the re-commissioning of the turbine.
Re-commissioning
The status of the wind turbine was changed into a ‘test turbine’ as we bought it, and that gave us the opportunity to modify it according to our purposes. The objective of kk-electronic was to ensure that the ‘C’ platform could perform as scoped in the development projects. kk-electronic’s objectives were to develop a control platform with:
- a very high availability;
- high reliability under all weather conditions, offshore and onshore, cold and warm climate, high altitudes, etc.;
- a control system that enables continuous improvement processes during the lifetime of the turbine (learning loops);
- a flexible concept that made customisation and customers’ differentiation very easy.
Turbine Performance
The re-commissioning was divided into three stages: first going up to an output of 1MW, then 1.5MW and finally at nominal effect, 2MW. This sequence was chosen to ensure adequate time for learning and optimisation of the system integration and to avoid serious errors. Consequently, the power curve diagram (Figure 3) includes these three different datasets.
Recently, we started a 30-day test without other test projects. In this way we can observe how the turbine is running ‘when not tampered with all the time’. This is to test our controller running continuously and to ensure that our application software can manage the turbine in the correct and safe way. Figures 4, 5 and 6 illustrate the wind speed, availability and production figures for the test period, which started on 30 June 2012. As can be seen, there has not been a lot of wind and hence full production has not yet been achieved. Availability is top-notch, with the exception of two incidents: the first dive was due to a converter trip that was quickly rectified, the second dive was due to a faulty transformer fan that stopped the turbine. (This fan is currently being exchanged.) The control system and the converter have performed outstandingly well in all cases and the turbine is now running with a daily availability of higher than 99%.
Advanced Controls
Wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger in order to maximise energy output, and this trend makes increasing demands on the control system. Control engineers must develop new controls to maximise energy capture and reduce loads in order to prevent damage to turbines and possible system failures.
The ‘C’ software is a step forward in control system engineering but adds a new dimension by adding a '6th sense technology'. 6th sense is a framework of methods and functionalities in the wind turbine controller that combines models with knowledge of the past and present in order to predict the future wind turbine behaviour, and then provides control based on this prediction. Data accessibility, analysis and pattern detection combined with a Turbine Optimising Tool Chain (TOTC) will provide the customers with predictive models giving more stable operational conditions and a big boost to creating a proactive maintenance plan (to lower maintenance costs).
The ‘C’ platform has anticipated this trend and consequently ‘C’ is much more than just a controller. The individual parts of ‘C’ make a complete concept, which enables users to simulate, test and verify diverse control schemes. The purpose is, of course, to optimise the performance of wind turbines in relation to loads in all kinds of wind conditions (Figure 7). As an extra result, ‘C’ might improve the structural integrity of the turbine, which again might reduce the over-dimensioning of the construction. This will, in turn, allow reductions in capital investment and increase the return on investment of wind turbines.
Biography of the Author
Erik Gammelgaard has a Masters degree in marketing and an additional GMP-degree from CEDEP/Fontainebleau. He also has 25 years of experience working with internationally operating companies in the business-to-business markets. He has been with kk-electronic for five years and aims to help make the company a genuine source of control technology for the industry.{/access}
