As a leader in the generation of reliable power from solar energy, Torresol Energy develops concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. The company’s flagship project is GemaSolar, a new plant in Fuentes de Andalucía, Spain. As the first commercial plant in the world to apply central tower and heliostat technology, the installation comprises 2600 heliostats occupying 185 hectares. The electricity generated – approximately 110 GWh/year – will help to provide electricity for 25 000 households.
GemaSolar has an innovative high-temperature molten-salt heat storage system that allows the normal operating period of the plant to be extended. The sites autonomy is some 15 hours, during which the plant can continue to generate power, even when there is no sunlight. The extension of plant operating time during the absence of sunlight, together with enhanced efficiency in the use of the sun’s heat, means that production is three times more than that attained by other technologies in installations having the same power.
The installation’s key requirements
Sener, the engineering company responsible for designing and scoping the project, appointed Schneider Electric Spain to be responsible as the main contractor for designing, producing and implementing the solar field control system (SCS) and the distributed control system (DCS). Schneider Electric in turn chose to work with Hirschmann, as it was able to deliver and guarantee the following key benefits:
* Maximum up-time thanks to redundant Ethernet ring topology.
* Reduced installation time because the switch is fast DIN rail mountable.
* No single point of failure can interrupt the communication.
* Continuous and efficient operation of the solar thermal power plant as any failure can be identified in advance through remote control and extended diagnosis via interface.
* Stable operation and increased security of the power generation park as the data services transmissions can be separated and structured by using virtual networks (VLAN).
* Greater cost efficiency through effective planning of the network.
Drawing up a list of specifications, Hirschmann suggested that the required data communication could be realised via robust fibre optics and redundant Ethernet ring topology. For the network planning, key elements included fast redundant switching as well as data communication, monitoring and control based on fast Ethernet. Gigabit Ethernet with routing function was required at the backbone ring in addition to hot swappable media modules with high port density. Finally, all products were required to be both robust and resistant to temperature fluctuations with a high predictive lifetime of the hardware as well as a high MTBF of all devices. Easy-to-handle comprehensive network management software was required for effective status monitoring.
As it is vital that the network system is constantly available and the efficiency of the power plant is linked with the control of the tracking system of the heliostats, only products of the highest reliability were chosen for this project. The network structure must ensure that no single point of failure can interrupt the communication within the power plant. This ensures system continuity optimises the performance and productivity of the entire energy generation process.
The Hiper-Ring solution
Hirschmann was able to offer the right solution, based on a highest redundancy concept with the Hiper-Ring backbone, which guarantees a recovery time of less than 300 milliseconds. The ring structure allows both a cost optimised implementation of a redundant network as well as maintenance and network extension during operation. This makes the Hiper-Ring especially suitable for complex applications.
The network topology is based on a redundant backbone ring with Gigabit Ethernet using Mach 4002 switches with routing functionality for the 26 fibre optic rings. For the comprehensive monitoring and visualisation of the network, the Hirschmann management software Industrial HiVision was used.
For more information contact Raine Sadie, IAC, +27 (0)12 657 3600, [email protected], www.iaconline.co.za
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