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Case Study: Wind Turbine Farm, USA

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DataHub Scripting solution calms the conflict of bats vs. blades

Required by law to protect a rare species of bat, a major wind power generation company finds a solution using the Cogent DataHub®.

A rapid expansion of wind farms across the Eastern and Central United States has been checked in the past couple of years due to growing concerns for wildlife. An endangered bat species lives in that area, and is protected by law. Fears that the whirring blades of wind turbines could be harmful to this species of bat were sufficient to halt construction of a wind farm in West Virginia in 2009, and the discovery of a dead bat near a wind turbine in Pennsylvania in 2011 caused the power company to shut down the whole 35-turbine system for several weeks.

Although wind turbines are known to cause a few fatalities among common tree-dwelling bats, the endangered bat was thought to be largely safe, as it lives in caves, hibernates for more than half the year, and is seldom found in the vicinity of wind turbines. However, in the fall these bats migrate from their feeding grounds to their home caves for the winter. During this time, the chances of them passing through a wind farm are greatly increased.

In March a few years ago a major power company in the USA was informed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service that a number of turbines on the bat migration routes would need to be shut down while the bats are migrating. This caused quite a stir. The migration period for the bats is two months long―from mid-August to mid-October. Shutting down the whole system for that length of time would be very costly, not to mention the loss of clean energy which would need to be replaced by fossil fuels.

To maximize uptime, the company gained permission to let the turbines run during the times that the bats were not flying – all daylight hours, and in the night time when air temperatures drop below a specific temperature setpoint, or when the wind is fairly strong. The challenge was to implement a complete solution. A single bat fatality could mean full shut-down, legal penalties, and even lawsuits.

Top management at the company immediately took action, contacting the wind turbine manufacturer, who also provides the control systems. After several months of emails and meetings, it became apparent that the manufacturer would not have anything ready in time for the mid-August deadline.

“With three weeks to go, they told us there was no solution in sight,” said the SCADA engineer responsible for the project, “and we would need to go to manual operation, and reconfigure the cut-in speed on every turbine, twice a day.”

Most wind turbines are designed to “cut in”, or start turning to produce energy, when the wind is blowing at a certain speed. For these turbines, the normal cut-in speed is 3.5 meters per second. As the bats are active in low to moderate wind speeds, the company would need to raise that to 7 meters per second each night, and then drop it back down to 3.5 the following morning. This would mean manually reconfiguring the PLCs for 100 turbines, twice a day.

A better way

“I thought there must be a better way,” the project manager continued. “We’d been using the DataHub for years, and knew the potential was there to leverage this asset further. I gave Skkynet a call, and told them what we were up against. They delivered by helping us to develop a very efficient program using the native scripting language of the DataHub. The code ran right on the SCADA interface of the OEM system – so it’s as reliable as you can get.”

“Working together with Skkynet, we came up with a DataHub script that doesn’t change the cut-in speed of the turbines at all. We just blocked them from starting. The script tells each turbine to stay off, and keeps measuring wind speed. When it picks up to 7 meters per second, the script releases the turbine to start, and it ramps right up to the operating state. At the end of the day, we have a complete audit trail of every turbine controlled, including a history of critical parameters, such as rotational and wind speeds, and energy curtailed.”

“The script also has a temperature component. On cool nights in September and October, when the temperature drops below the dew point, it uses the same algorithm for starting and stopping the wind turbines.”

By the first week of August a test script was written, and after a few days of testing and last-minute tweaks, it was ready. The system went live on August 15th, and is meeting all expectations. Every night, whenever the air temperature is above the setpoint and the wind speed falls below 7 meters per second, the wind turbines stop, allowing the endangered bats to return safely to their caves for a long winter hibernation.

“I call the DataHub the Canadian Swiss Army Knife,” said the project manager. “We are able to accomplish a host of required functions with a single product solution. The ability to provide sophisticated logic and control algorithms with the built-in functionality of this product is the game changer. Being able to securely deliver real-time data between a site and the control center system allows the dispatch team to monitor the control process and maximize the production of clean, renewable, energy sources. Talk about a smart grid – who would have thought we’d be doing this type of thing in real time?”

Case Study: ABB Energy Automation, Italy

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Secure OPC tunnel/mirror between power plants and company offices

In two recent projects, Italy’s ABB Energy Automation has developed a control solution that feeds data from power plant facilities directly to corporate offices – in real time – using DataHub® software. A key requirement was to provide a highly secure means of data transmission, with minimal risk of break-ins. For each project they implemented a DataHub tunnel/mirror solution to establish a secure, reliable connection between the power plant and corporate networks.

ABB Energy Automation provides software and control systems for power plants to ensure that equipment operates at optimum speed and efficiency. For these projects, it became clear that several Italian power companies would benefit substantially by monitoring the performance of the plant directly from the company offices. Mr. Michele Mannucci, ABB Project Engineer, began looking for a way to make the connection, using the most reliable and secure means available.

“Customers are very sensitive about security these days since they need to exchange information on the web,” he said. “We had OPC DA servers on our equipment, but found that using DCOM for networking was too risky. It required us to open too many ports in our firewalls. We had to find a way to avoid using DCOM.”

A search on the web brought Mr. Mannucci to DataHub software. For the first test, he connected a DataHub instance to the plant’s DigiVis Freelance 2000 OPC server, and then configured it to tunnel out through the plant firewall. With that working, he installed another DataHub instance on the corporate network, and then created a tunnel/mirror connection between the two DataHub instances.

For the production system, the company decided to use ABB’s own proprietary OPC server on the secure LAN in the plant, and connect that to the DataHub instance. From there the data flows out through the plant firewall via SSL-encrypted TCP to a DataHub instance in the corporate offices, which is connected to the corporate LAN. The two DataHub instances mirror the data, so that every data change on the plant LAN is immediately received on the corporate LAN.

“This DataHub tunnel with data mirroring is very good for our OPC networking, because we only need to open one port, and we are secure from DCOM break-ins,” said Mannucci. “We are considering installing this same solution in our top plants.”

It took only a few days for Mannucci to go from initial testing to a working system in the first power plant. The second system was up and running in a similar time frame. Both systems have been running 24/7 since installation, with no breaches in security.

Case Study: Gazprom, Russia

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Gazprom integrates SCADA, HMI modules, RTUs, data processing and historical archiving

Gazprom, the largest gas producing company in the world and responsible for 8% of Russia’s GDP, is using DataHub® software to monitor and control pumps, valves, consumption control units, cranes, and other equipment along 23,000 kilometers of pipeline spanning much of western Russia. The control system was developed by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise and is called the Unified Remote-Control Complex, or UNK TM. Software sales and support were provided by SWD Software Ltd., a QNX and Cogent distributor in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“DataHub software was the perfect tool for the job,” said Mr. Leonid Agafonov, Managing Director of SWD. “It is easy to use and provides robust connectivity for the whole control system. Our customer is very pleased with the project, particularly the reliability of the software.”

The system is an open, distributed-information control system with modular hardware architecture running on the QNX 4 operating system. A DataHub instance operates in each Control Room, and is connected to a number of Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), which in turn are connected to valves, pumps, and other hardware. The DataHub instance is also connected to a SCADA system, various HMI modules, and the Cascade Historian, which stores data to disk.

The system provides real-time operation, a multi-window graphical user interface, data processing components, and archival disk storage of data. Workstation devices and services, such as electro-chemical protection and operational service can be added or removed at any time. There is also teletext communication between the Control Room and the RTUs, through the DataHub software.

The Unified Remote-Control Complex has successfully passed tests administered by the Interdepartmental State Testing Commission and has been recommended for use at OAO “Gazprom” units and facilities. The system was developed by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “FNPZ Y.E.Sedakov NIIIS”. It has a Measurement Instrumentation Approval Certification #6398 and is listed as #18430-99 in the State Measurement Instrumentation Register.

Case Study: TEVA API Pharmaceuticals, Hungary

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TEVA combines tunnelling and aggregation to network OPC data through a firewall

Laszlo Simon is the Engineering Manager for the TEVA API plant in Debrecen, Hungary. He had a project that sounded simple enough. Connect new control applications through several OPC stations to an existing SCADA network. The plant was already running large YOKOGAWA DCS and GE PLC control systems, connected to a number of distributed SCADA workstations. However, Mr. Simon did face a couple of interesting challenges in this project:

  • The OPC servers and SCADA systems were on different computers, separated by a company firewall. This makes it extremely difficult to connect OPC over a network, because of the complexities of configuring DCOM and Windows security permissions.
  • Each SCADA system needed to access data from all of the new OPC server stations. This meant Mr. Simon needed a way to aggregate data from all the OPC stations into a single common data set.

After searching the web, Mr. Simon downloaded and installed DataHub® software. Very quickly he was able to connect a DataHub instance to each of his OPC servers, and determine that he was reading live process data from TEVA’s new control systems. He was also able to easily set up OPC tunnelling links between the OPC server stations and the SCADA workstations, by simply installing another DataHub instance on each SCADA computer and configuring it to connect to the OPC server stations. This unique combination allows him to view data from both OPC servers on either SCADA system

“I wanted to reduce and simplify the communication over the network because of our firewall. It was very easy with DataHub software.” said Mr. Simon after the system was up and running. Currently about 7,000 points are being transferred across the network, in real-time. “In the future, the additional integration of the existing or new OPC servers will be with DataHub technology.”

Case Study: Mukhaizna Oil Field, Oman

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Optimizing OPC connections with the DataHub

In 2005 the Sultanate of Oman issued a Royal Decree to develop the giant Mukhaizna oil field covering a vast expanse of desert in the center and south of the country. A major worldwide producer of oil, natural gas, and chemicals was given responsibility for developing the Mukhaizna field, and from 2005 to 2008 oil recovery rates were increased by more than 600% through the use of a steam-assisted gravity drainage process. As each year goes by, the company makes every effort to continuously upgrade technology and improve productivity of the field.

Eight separate production facilities in the Mukhaizna oil field are using Rockwell PLCs, linked to Iconics HMI/SCADA systems for data visualization and operator control. This data collection and distribution mechanism worked well when first implemented, but as the number of data points increased over time it became clear to the project engineers that they needed a way to improve performance. So they began to look for a way to streamline the data flow. The solution they found not only performed well, but it created other, significant opportunities for real-time data integration.

Software Toolbox logo

At each of the eight locations, Rockwell PLCs are connected to an Iconics Genesis32 HMI through an OPC server. The TOP Server OPC server from Software Toolbox (Skkynet’s Sales and Technical Partner) gathers data from as many as 20 PLCs, and feeds that to the HMI. As new equipment was brought online, the number of tags in the system approached 30,000, which is normally not a problem for TOP Server. But something was clearly different with this system and it became apparent that some sort of optimization was necessary.

Optimization

The problem was that the HMI was forcing the TOP Server to make device reads, which bypassed TOP Server’s optimization at the device level. Device reads by an OPC client are intended to cause the OPC server to get the information and reply back to the OPC client before doing anything else. While these types of calls are useful in critical situations, all communication optimization has to be done through full system design. The HMI was also requesting updates on groups of OPC tags as it needed them, but these groups were often in a different logical order than how the data points were represented on the PLC. The combined effect was forcing the TOP Server to make more requests for smaller amounts of data, slowing the data-gathering process.

“The OPC server seemed to be dying under the load,” said Juan Munoz, Project Manager for the Mukhaizna oil field project. “Even at rates as low as once per second, it was difficult to scan 30,000 tags, and get the critical data changes that we needed.” Based on his experience with the TOP Server in other projects, Mr. Munoz knew the server itself was not the issue, so he searched the Software Toolbox website for a solution and found DataHub® technology.

DataHub software, developed by Cogent Real-Time Systems (a subsidiary of Skkynet), is a highly optimized data integration tool. It is a memory resident real-time database that provides quick, reliable and secure access to valuable process data and makes it available to other production and management systems, database archives, and remote clients.

Once he started configuring a DataHub instance, Mr. Munoz soon realized how it could solve his data flow problem. Acting as an OPC client to TOP Server, DataHub software can request data based on tag value changes (referred to as “asynchronous advise”). This means that instead of 30,000 tags per second, TOP Server only sends data for a tag when it changes value. It is free to poll the devices in the most efficient way, always keeping the DataHub instance up to date with the latest data values. The DataHub instance keeps all the latest tag values in memory, and can efficiently send them to the HMI on each poll.

“DataHub software effectively decouples the OPC server from the client,” said Mr. Munoz. “All the load is on its shoulders  now, and the performance is much better.” The TOP Server is now free to optimize the communications to the device while the DataHub instance protects it from device reads. This has relieved the company from having to redesign their HMI and PLC configurations from the ground up, saving them tens of thousands of dollars in engineering and development work.

When he was satisfied with the results at the first location, Mr. Munoz began installing DataHub software at the seven other facilities. He experienced a similar performance boost, and at the same time created a new data integration opportunity. He now had most of the pieces in place to bring all of the live production data to a central location, using OPC tunnelling.

Tunnelling OPC

Tunnelling OPC is a reliable and secure way to connect OPC servers and clients over a network. OPC DA uses DCOM for networking, which is difficult to configure, does not respond well to network breaks, and can pose significant security risks. DataHub software mirrors data between OPC DA servers and clients through a tunnel using TCP, which is a more robust protocol for networking.

To implement tunnelling, Mr. Munoz installed another DataHub instance on a Windows server at the Mukhaizna oil field central office. After configuring tunnelling connections between that DataHub instance and the remote ones, he was able to access the data from all eight field locations as a single, common data set, without putting any more load on his control system. This data could now be logged and shared at the management level of the company.

Using the DataHub Database interface, Mr. Munoz configured connections to OSIsoft PI and SQL Server databases, to record production data at the remote sites and at the central office. Historical records and reports are now being made available through standard tools such as SQL and Crystal Reports. Mr. Munoz also configured an OPC connection from the central DataHub instance to an Iconics Web HMI to give managers access to the live data from all of the eight field sites. Operators, on the other hand, continue to control the processes from the HMIs running at the remote locations.

Among the critical information that operators and management need to monitor is the available memory and status of programs running at each field location. The company was able to achieve this by configuring the DataHub System Monitor feature, which allowed Mr. Munoz to add points that monitor the available computer memory and status of the OPC server running at each remote location. This data is accessed locally by operators, and is also tunnelled back to the central DataHub instance, so it can be viewed by users of the Web HMI on the management network.

“DataHub software is very easy to use,” said Mr. Munoz. “In fact, at a recent training session we showed some other people at the company what we are doing, and they are very impressed.”

Redundancy

The most recent project that Mr. Munoz has decided to tackle with DataHub software is to implement redundancy. To provide increased availability, the company has installed an additional OPC server at some locations. Working with Win Worrall, Product Support Engineer and Developer at Software Toolbox, Mr. Munoz has implemented DataHub redundancy to monitor the quality of the data coming from the local OPC server.

If the quality of an indicator changes to “Bad” or “Not Connected” on the primary OPC server, the DataHub instance immediately switches to the redundant OPC server and continues collecting data from there. Although this is currently undergoing testing before being implemented in the production facility, Mr. Munoz reports that there is no data loss during the switchover, and that the performance is very reliable.

Scripting

To gain maximum value from DataHub software, Mr. Munoz has developed a working knowledge of DataHub Scripting. “The scripting language did take a little time to learn, but it is very useful for the types of scripts we need to use. We can develop scripts quickly now, because the language is object oriented.”

Starting with a demo script from the DataHub archive, Mr. Munoz has been able to access data from a legacy UNIX system and make it available through OPC. To access the data, Mr. Munoz wrote a DataHub script to read a CSV file every minute and write the values to points in the DataHub instance. Because DataHub software is also an OPC server, this allows points from the UNIX system to be presented as OPC tags to the HMI system.

“I am impressed with how quickly Juan has picked up the scripting,” said Mr. Worrall. “In fact, he’s pretty good at getting the most out of DataHub technology in just about every way.” “We are very grateful to Win and the overall support from Software Toolbox on this project,” said Mr. Munoz. “We haven’t found many problems. In all aspects, DataHub software is performing very well.”

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Software Toolbox and TOP Server are trademarks of Software Toolbox, Inc. Other product names, brand names and company names mentioned in this publication may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Case Study: Minera San Cristobal, Bolivia – 1

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Connecting corporate and control systems

Minera San Cristobal, owned by Apex Silver and Sumitomo Corporation, is one of the largest silver-zinc-lead mining projects in the world. The mine, located in the Potosi district of southwestern Bolivia is expected to produce approximately 450 million ounces of silver, 8 billion pounds of zinc, and 3 billion pounds of lead. In the San Cristobal mill the ore extracted from the mine is crushed, ground, and refined through flotation process to yield concentrates of silver, zinc, and lead, which are then shipped abroad for final smelting. These processes are monitored and controlled using the DeltaV Professional Plus SCADA system. When the system was first installed, managers at the San Cristobal mill initiated a project called “DeltaV External Historian”. The goal of the project was to store vital process data in a SQL Server database, for these three reasons:

  1. To maintain an external backup of the most important process data out of the process control servers (more than 3600 points).
  2. To provide access to the plant information from the corporate network, while avoiding the risk of having office personnel connected to the control network.
  3. To interface with corporate ERP systems like JD Edwards.

To achieve all three of these goals, Sr. Mario Mendizabal chose Cogent DataHub® software and used it to connect his DeltaV system to SQL server. First, he connected a DataHub instance to the DeltaV OPC server on the control network. He then installed a second DataHub instance on the SQL Server machine, which is on the corporate network. Finally, he connected these two DataHub instances over TCP, using DataHub tunnel/mirroring. This connection bypasses firewalls, eliminates the need to configure DCOM, and provides a secure link between the corporate and control systems. The tunnelling connection mirrors the data between the two DataHub instances, putting a complete set of data on both machines. To ensure that the control system is completely independent from any input on the corporate side, Sr. Mendizabal configured the connection to be one-way only-from DeltaV to the External Historian. This avoids any overwrite problems.

“The system has been performing very well,” said Sr. Mendizabal. “The backup data log is perfectly accurate, and the connection to the corporate network is functioning just as we had planned. The managers and accounting staff are very pleased to have up-to-the-second access to the most critical data coming out of our control system. We couldn’t have done it so easily or so well without DataHub software.”