Second Wind Offers Windfarm Substation Monitoring

Substation monitoring is an extended feature of Second Wind’s Advanced Distributed Monitoring System (ADMS). A specially programmed CTM substation monitor located in the site operations building is connected to a data concentrator located in the substation. The CTM is also linked to the ADMS Supervisor computer that allows all incoming data to be monitored and displayed in real-time.

Every few seconds, the CTM will poll the data concentrator to retrieve a subset of data from the five substation data sources: three feeder protective relays, one station RTU, and one DPU. From this, data “channels” will be created to generate “track data”, for example, the ten minute averages of Total Reactive Power at each of the substation data sources. The CTM is configured to collect up to 64 tracks divided among four intervals: 1-minute, 10-minute, hourly, and daily. The track list may be altered after installation, but would also require CTM reprogramming.

The substation alarm and states data accumulated by the CTM is processed into “events” and “faults” that are displayed on the Supervisor computer and stored in the ADMS database. Like the other device zoom features integral to the Supervisor, the One-Line Diagram is automatically updated at a default rate of five seconds.

A Status Points zoom window brings up a tabular display of the complete list of monitored states. Each cell displays a register position that corresponds to the database event text table and the data concentrator.

Other data is also available displaying running counters, frozen counters, and the status of the high side breaker. The frozen counters are created hourly by the receiving utility when they “freeze” the running counters. The information in the frozen counter provides the basis for financial remuneration for that hour.