Reimagining the Role of SCADA and Asset Management Software in the Age of Renewable Generation
Introduction
SCADA systems have long played a role in the power sector, managing and monitoring various processes and equipment in traditional power-generating settings. Now, the changing landscape of energy production and distribution creates an opportunity to reimagine the role of SCADA software as a tool that further enhances asset management and, in doing so, helps power generators more effectively optimize performance of their diverse individual assets and entire fleets.
Going Green Complicates Asset Management
Power generation has transformed significantly over the past decade. Utilities are diversifying their energy portfolios to reduce their carbon footprints by increasing production from wind, solar, and other renewable sources. While traditional fossil fuel plants have equipment housed under one roof, often with a common automation platform that provides valuable insights into numerous processes and equipment, renewable energy is typically generated by dozens or even hundreds of geographically dispersed power sources—some in remote locations that may be difficult to regularly access due to rough terrain.
Having a more distributed power generation system does offer benefits. For example, operations and maintenance can work more effectively when the loss of a few assets is not a catastrophic event. However, this new dynamic also creates a number of complications that must be addressed.
One complication is geography itself. A team may be responsible for hundreds or even thousands of renewable assets spanning a wide geographical area. And it is likely that these different renewable assets were supplied at different times by a variety of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This leads to another complication: Because each OEM provides its own proprietary automation system for its assets, renewable energy producers can quickly be saddled with a complex mix of disparate systems, each with its own control strategies and limitations. The time and expense needed to maintain multiple systems can be onerous.
To make matters worse, these multiple clean energy assets and their respective controls are generating huge amounts of datapoints—sometimes exponentially more than traditional plants. Of course, data is of little (or no) value if it cannot be accurately contextualized. Because disparate systems do not typically “play nice” with each other, integrating assets and sharing data is extremely challenging, translating into a narrow view of operations and, consequently, slower and inefficient decision making.
This operating model is unsustainable in today’s competitive energy environment. Power producers need a unified view of operations to optimally manage a portfolio of traditional plants, renewable generation and energy storage assets to maximize their return on investment.
Harnessing Technology to Reduce Complexity
Overcoming the complications outlined here—a large geographic footprint, remote locations, disparate controls and massive amounts of siloed data—requires a software solution that can gather, contextualize and securely deliver real-time and historical asset data to key stakeholders. Doing so provides them with accurate, actionable intelligence that enables better decision-making resulting in greater annual production and higher revenues.
Emerson has seen growth in the use of SCADA software that mirrors the expansion in renewable generation, as power producers recognize its value in improving asset utilization and reliability while extending the operating lifespan. The company has developed an innovative, purpose-built solution that puts meaningful data at the fingertips of stakeholders: Ovation™ Green renewable SCADA and asset management software.
This solution overcomes the obstacles of integrating systems and data sharing. Instead of data silos it provides a single pane of glass with clear operational visibility across the entire portfolio of sustainable energy generation and storage assets. Harnessing and contextualizing the massive amounts of intelligent data generated by renewable assets not only ensures efficient and reliable operation at the site level, but also at the fleet level, enabling utilities to make smart, informed decisions about how best to deploy multiple assets to meet both the energy needs of customers and the financial needs of the organization. Here are a few practical examples of how unfiltered data at any time from anywhere can create meaningful opportunities for optimization:
- Performing automated resets of wind turbines
- Feeding data into advanced pattern recognition (APR) models
- Improving fault prediction on renewable assets
- Aggregating grids, distributed energy resources and electric vehicle (EV) chargers
- Handling the complex and sometimes unpredictable tasks of energy trading, load shedding and virtual power plant management
And this is just the tip of the iceberg: With the vast amount of data available through SCADA, integrating and training artificial intelligence (AI) models to recognize potential issues before they arise will be a game-changer. Enabling predictive and AI-driven maintenance strategies (for example predicting failures and pre-ordering parts to minimize the impact of an outage) is only one of many potential applications.
Conclusion
The power industry has never been more dynamic: The integration of renewable energy with traditional sources is transforming both its infrastructure and business model. Emerson’s Ovation™ Green renewable SCADA and asset management software offers a unified view of operations that maximizes performance, production and profitability.
Looking ahead, as the demand for sustainable energy sources continues to grow and new green power options emerge, Emerson will remain committed to supporting the industry with its cutting-edge software, automation portfolio, and technical expertise. This commitment will help pave the way for a future where reliable power from a mix of sources is achieved on a large scale, driving the power industry’s transformation and leading to a healthier, safer, smarter, and more sustainable world.