EARTfelt Welcome, dear friends of protection and control engineering, In today's guest article, Mrs. Sylvia Bienert from Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus and Mr. Tobias Schwinger from Horstmann GmbH report on the expansion of the urban electricity grid by means of a cloud-based solution.
Enjoy reading, we pass on:
Sylvia Bienert (Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus) and Tobias Schwinger (Horstmann)
Network information for grid management and planning is becoming increasingly important for utilities. For this reason, the Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus decided for a area-wide expansion with state-of-the-art telecommunications coupled with a clear and user-friendly cloud service.
Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus is 100% owned by the city of Heiligenhaus and since 1 January 2016 has also assumed responsibility for the city's electricity network. Safe and stable network operation is of great importance to Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus. "Customer satisfaction comes first," says Sylvia Bienert, technical director of Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus. Following the takeover of the power grid, Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus have developed a plan for the replacement of local network stations that have come of age. "To date, we have exchanged about 20% of our 180 local network stations. In the coming years, more stations will follow successively, "says Ms. Bienert.
For secure network operation and accurate network planning, network data from the local area network becomes more important. The system solution from Horstmann enables continuous monitoring of the medium and low voltage grid. In order to obtain network data from the medium-voltage network, it was decided to equip the stations with short-circuit and earth-fault direction indicators, which also allow monitoring of the medium-voltage network. In close cooperation with Horstmann GmbH, Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus developed a standard for their new local network stations and decided to use the ComPass B.
In the event of a fault, you are now able to quickly isolate the fault location and save time and costs in troubleshooting. In normal operation, the ComPass B provides important network data such as currents, voltages and power. These data can be remotely reported via an RS485 interface or read locally on the OLED display. "The included network data are of enormous importance for our network planning and help us to design the network in a stable and secure way." Mr. Sennhenn, responsible for network planning at Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus.
Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus has opted for a complete solution from Horstmann GmbH for remote reporting of errors and network data. The Reporter 4.0 in combination with iHost Cloud offers the possibility to report data easily and with little effort. The data is sent to iHost via the mobile network. The network information can be retrieved with any Internet-enabled device, such as a laptop, tablet or smartphone. A log-in enables employees to get an overview of their local network quickly and location-independent. In the event of an error, notifications are sent immediately by e-mail or SMS so that the error location can be quickly narrowed down. The interference suppression personnel can thus be directed to the affected fault location and the fault remedied quickly.
For network planning historical values from the time of initial installation are available in iHost Cloud. These values can be graphically edited using the trend function, which makes comparability and evaluation much easier and more convenient. The special feature, in addition to the network information from the medium voltage, the currents, voltages and power from the low voltage are recorded and transmitted.
"This gives us a meaningful overview of our power grid at all times and sufficient information for targeted network planning,"
emphasizes Ms. Bienert.
In the future, all new local network stations will be equipped with the Reporter 4.0, so that the power grid for Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus will gradually become more and more transparent. Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus will continue to work closely with Horstmann GmbH in the future. "We appreciate the good cooperation and the flexibility of the Horstmann GmbH very much.", Said Mr. Fischer as responsible grid master.
Conclusion:
"Thanks to the quick and easy installation, Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus has managed to make the local network more transparent. If an error occurs, the employees can be directed in a targeted, efficient and resource-saving manner. For network planning, the most important grid data from medium voltage and low voltage are available and can be used for simulations, among other things.
Everything from one source: from the short circuit indicator to the Mini Scada system. "Thanks to the system solution from Horstmann GmbH, we can look forward to the future and the increasing demands placed on the distribution network confidently and relaxed." Sums up Ms. Sylvia Bienert from Stadtwerke Heiligenhaus.
