Programming and integration of PLC, PPC, SCADA and RTU for a 50MW photo voltaic (PV) solar farm in Quinebaug, CT.

Situation

Across North America, energy utilities are transitioning to clean sources like solar and wind. The rapid growth of solar power in New England is reducing demand on the grid, which can help prevent outages during heatwaves and other high-demand situations. State and local governments along with organizations like ISO New England are tasked with making sure they can provide reliable electricity at competitive prices. This begins with bringing systems online efficiently and having reliable monitoring and control. Reliable systems allow ISO New England to forecast capacity across several states and foster better regional collaboration.

Challenge

The Quinebaug Solar Energy Center was a high-profile project with financial incentives to complete the work on a tight schedule.

As such, bringing in experienced and reliable project partners like Affinity Energy was critical to meeting the deadline.

While these types of projects are always complex and challenging, dealing with supply-chain issues, inclement weather and local labor resources compressed the schedule, giving Affinity Energy a suboptimal time window to complete our work.

Solution

Affinity Energy had been chosen by the world’s largest generator of renewable energy to work on a number of other solar projects over the last several years. The expert and reliable performance of Affinity Energy engineers made us the obvious choice for this new, fast-tracked project. “We knew this project would come down to the wire. We needed a partner who could think fast and had experience integrating systems for maximum efficiency and reliability,” said an executive with the clean energy provider. “We had worked with Affinity Energy on projects throughout the Southeastern U.S., so bringing their team to New England was an easy decision.”

Affinity Energy programmed the Schneider Electric programmable logic controller (PLC) power plant controller (PPC).  The controller provides power curtailment, real and reactive power output, power factor control, as well as automatic voltage regulation (AVR). We next programmed the Inductive Automation Ignition Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software to provide real-time data viewing, set-point adjustments, alarm notifications, trend analysis, and reporting. Finally, we programmed the Novatech Remote Terminal Units (RTU) that allow the power plant controller to interface with the transmission substation protection, controls, and metering and also serve as the off-taker interface. After setting up the entire control system, Affinity Energy was tasked to field verify and commission #1 to #3, which includes all testing with the American clean energy provider’s remote operation control center (ROCC) as well as Convex and ISO-NE systems.

Results

Affinity Energy successfully completed the project on schedule. To meet the field requirements on the final day meant members of our team would have to miss our company holiday party. But we believe our commitment is just as important as our expertise. Our partners depend on us. Electricity customers depend on us. As the world works toward reducing dependency on fossil fuels by adopting solar as a source, Affinity Energy is positioned to help communities make the transition as cost-effective and beneficial as possible.