A scalable distributed control system (DCS) by TTTech Industrial has been integrated into the world’s first 15 MW wind turbine, the Vestas V236-15.0 MW.
TTTech Industrial and Vestas have been working together for more than ten years. TTTech Industrial’s DCS is being integrated into thousands of Vestas wind turbines every year, most recently into the prototype V236-15.0 MW, the company said.
Vestas approached TTTech Industrial looking for a solution to simplify the internal control systems in their turbines. Vestas’ primary goals were to avoid developing new system architectures for each and every new turbine model and to reduce system complexity to facilitate easier service and maintenance. To meet these requirements, TTTech Industrial developed a scalable distributed control system (DCS) for Vestas.
With TTTech Industrial’s solution, Vestas optimized its development and is now able to reuse more than 70 per cent of the turbine architecture when developing new turbine models, the Vienna-based company said.
The DCS enables the connection of multiple control devices inside the wind turbine, with safety-critical and non-safety-critical functions being able to run next to each other on a specially developed controller. Data from multiple controllers is transmitted on a single network cable with Deterministic Ethernet technology from TTTech Industrial, ensuring optimal bandwidth usage. This makes the entire system easier to maintain and reduces the need for expensive cabling inside the turbine, according to TTTech Industrial .
”We have been working successfully with TTTech Industrial for more than a decade. From the very beginning, high competency in functional safety and experience with safety-critical applications were a must for us,” said Jan Sondergaard , Module Owner/VP at Vestas.
”The DCS makes building new turbines easier and more cost-effective and speeds up time to delivery and installation. This ensures higher availability of the turbines and reduces energy costs for our customers. We currently use TTTech Industrial’s DCS in our turbines in the onshore sector and have now also included it into our newest offshore turbine, the V236-15.0 MW™.”
The prototype Vestas V236-15.0 MW wind turbine is planned to be installed at the Østerild National test centre for large wind turbines in Western Jutland, Denmark, later this year.
With a height of 280 metres and a production output of 80 GWh/year, the prototype will be the tallest and most powerful wind turbine in the world once installed.
”The partnership with Vestas was a milestone for TTTech Industrial in the energy sector. Our long cooperation started with the integration of our DCS in a 4 MW turbine and continued with the roll-out of the DCS in other turbine variants. We are proud to contribute to renewable energy production together with Vestas and look forward to our continued cooperation,” said Thomas Berndorfer , Member of the Executive Board, TTTech Industrial.