Ethernet Direct Penetrates Wind Farm Applications in North America & Europe

To understand the application concept, a wind farm is a group of wind turbines used for production of electric power. Individual turbines are interconnected with a medium voltage usually 34.5 kV power collection system and communications network. At a substation, this medium-voltage electrical current is increased in voltage with a transformer for connection to the high voltage transmission system. A large wind farm may consist of a few dozen to several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles.

Ethernet Direct has successful wind farm applications involving onshore, near shore and offshore. An example of onshore application is deployed in North America wherein wind power installations used PLC systems to link each other and then connected to Industrial Ethernet equipments. An onshore turbine installation requires rugged outdoor switches and Ethernet Direct HME-623 and RUE-113 devices offer industry compliant robust protection with high level of immunity against electromagnetic interferences and power supply surges.

While an example of offshore project was deployed using HUG-628G running 70 km long distances in Northern Europe, installed in the world’s first full-scale floating windmill combining technology from both the wind and oil & Gas industry also called the next generation wind Technology. The project combines known technologies in a completely new setting and opens up the possibility for the wind industry to capture the wind energy within deep water environments. The floating structure consists of a steel jacket filled with ballast. This floating element will extend 100 meters beneath the surface and will be fastened to the seabed by three anchor piles. The wind turbine can be placed at ocean depths of between 120 and 700 metres. The windmill will be placed on top of the submerged structure and will then stand 65m above sea level to the centre of the turbine. The turbine has a diameter of 82m and a peak production capacity of 2.3 MW.

Ethernet Direct boasts other proven successes in the wind farm applications. Ethernet technology is installed for long distance monitoring, centralized control, and operating capabilities in harsh environments where the wind power farms are usually located. Reliability & customer satisfaction is the key focus of Ethernet Direct.