SCADA

Once the wind power plant is up and running, the operator want to ensure it consistently performs at its best. It’s therefore crucial to monitor and control the performance of the turbines, which is where our state-of-the-art SCADA-system, VestasOnline®, comes in.

What is SCADA?

SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. It is a system that monitors and controls the wind power plant. VestasOnline®, our SCADA system, comprises the following components:

• Wind power plant server - VestasOnline® server application for operating and managing wind power plants, including remote communication interface
• Business client - VestasOnline® client application with operator interface
• Communication network - fibre-optic cables and switches connecting the server to the turbines
• Various options and add-ons – VestasOnline® can be tailored to your needs

How does VestasOnline® work?

VestasOnline® has an extensive range of monitoring and control functions to help optimise the performance of the wind power plant. Depending on the type of wind power plant, Vestas offer two VestasOnline® packages:

• VestasOnline® Compact for smaller wind farms with up to 10 turbines which can be installed in the base of the turbine
• VestasOnline® Business for larger wind farms or for customers who want advanced reporting, higher redundancy or advanced control and monitoring functionality.

What are the benefits of VestasOnline®?

VestasOnline® helps to get the most of out a wind power plant. After all, customers want to earn the best possible return from the investment in wind energy. The operator of the plant wants to be able to control it, track how it performs and monitor why it performs as it does. For instance, one might want to know how much production is lost due to weather conditions. VestasOnline® allows for this through a variety of reports and functions, such as:

• Online production view
• Plant layout view
• Event view
• Production reports
• Statistic reports
• Event notification

Furthermore, as wind penetration grows, information from the wind turbines and control of entire wind power plants become more and more important. That’s why VestasOnline® is customisable and can be delivered with different types of interfaces, wind power plant control functionality and data sets. VestasOnline® enables monitoring of the entire wind power plant including for example met masts or point of common coupling. It also enables seamless integration with a second level system making centralised control and monitoring possible.

How useful is the VestasOnline® information?

VestasOnline® provides the customer with a great deal of data and information, but it is of limited use unless one knows how to interpret the data and translate it into business decisions. To help our customers get to grips with VestasOnline®, we offer a range of different types of VestasOnline® training at our Vestas Business Academy.