Final Year Project 2011 - Hybrid renewable energy storage systems & applied control

drunken_munky52

The title is something along the desired lines.

I'm interested in researching automation, control and data acquisition for a hybrid renewable energy with storage system.

For this a prototype will be developed and tested. This would consist of PLC & SCADA based control.

There is plenty of information out there, but I am having trouble with narrowing the scope of the project down. Any suggestions about the minimum and maximum work to be done for this?

Does anyone care to share any knowledge about this?

x in the city

sounds like a lot of effort man.!

not really into scada systems myself (like no idea)

drunken_munky52

x in the city wrote: »

sounds like a lot of effort man.!

not really into scada systems myself (like no idea)

Thanks X.... Im there now :rolleyes:

steifanc

if its only a project , stick to min requirements from the college , you will get the same marks , i done something like that and ended up bogged down in the project , as it evolved and evolved , wishing i never took it on, and ended up having to defer some of my exams , if its an thesis thats a diffrent story .

judas101

I agree with steifanc, dont bite off more than you can chew.

Focus on one part and execute it well. You'll still get good marks and it wont have detrimental effects on your exams.

Offy

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

The title is something along the desired lines.

I'm interested in researching automation, control and data acquisition for a hybrid renewable energy with storage system.

For this a prototype will be developed and tested. This would consist of PLC & SCADA based control.

There is plenty of information out there, but I am having trouble with narrowing the scope of the project down. Any suggestions about the minimum and maximum work to be done for this?

Does anyone care to share any knowledge about this?

SCADA is a PLC hooked up to a PC. You can easily display the control screen using a web browser. Here's how it works in its basic form. The PLC transmits readings to the PC every x seconds, milliseconds. You will need to grab the data stream and strip off the paritybits, start bits, stop bits, etc. leaving just the raw data, I used C for that. Load this into a database (MySQL for example) and design a GUI to display your data. Controls are taken care of with either C/C++ or Visual Basic. Sounds simple but you need to use Ladder Logic, C or C++, HTLM and probably Visual Basic. Thats a lot of code for an engineering student. I had to code a SCADA system a few years ago and it took me almost a month of hard work. If you dont need it then dont use it. SCADA is a project in itself. What is the exact title you were given? A control system can be as simplt as On/Off buttons.

drunken_munky52

steifanc wrote: »

if its only a project , stick to min requirements from the college , you will get the same marks , i done something like that and ended up bogged down in the project , as it evolved and evolved , wishing i never took it on, and ended up having to defer some of my exams , if its an thesis thats a diffrent story .

Dont worry, I have every intention of keeping it to the minimum but at the same time I want to be interesting.

judas101 wrote: »

I agree with steifanc, dont bite off more than you can chew.

Focus on one part and execute it well. You'll still get good marks and it wont have detrimental effects on your exams.

I need a good game plan so. Would the research chapter 2 be the most important part?

Offy wrote: »

SCADA is a PLC hooked up to a PC. You can easily display the control screen using a web browser. Here's how it works in its basic form. The PLC transmits readings to the PC every x seconds, milliseconds. You will need to grab the data stream and strip off the paritybits, start bits, stop bits, etc. leaving just the raw data, I used C for that. Load this into a database (MySQL for example) and design a GUI to display your data. Controls are taken care of with either C/C++ or Visual Basic. Sounds simple but you need to use Ladder Logic, C or C++, HTLM and probably Visual Basic. Thats a lot of code for an engineering student. I had to code a SCADA system a few years ago and it took me almost a month of hard work. If you dont need it then dont use it. SCADA is a project in itself. What is the exact title you were given? A control system can be as simplt as On/Off buttons.

Basically, I want to be able to monitor the power coming from two different renewable sources like a wind turbine and a solar panel. These would be charging a battery. The battery SOC and the load would monitored too. The charge control would be controlled by a PLC. All PLC will be connected to host computer and possible use a client for show. Should be straight forward enough? I have a little experience with PLCs and Citect SCADA already.

Offy

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Basically, I want to be able to monitor the power coming from two different renewable sources like a wind turbine and a solar panel. These would be charging a battery. The battery SOC and the load would monitored too. The charge control would be controlled by a PLC. All PLC will be connected to host computer and possible use a client for show. Should be straight forward enough? I have a little experience with PLCs and Citect SCADA already.

It should be straight forward enough but it doesnt often pan out that way.
You have four outputs from the PLC to the PC. Is the charge control to be only on the PLC or is it to be controlled from the PC? Even with only two sensors its a lot of work to code. Start by getting the PLC to transmit its real time data to a text file. Sounds easy but first you have to write some code that opens the port and allows the data in. When you have it doing that use the string commands to strip the data so you only have the raw data you want and no parity bits, stop bits, etc. Once your happy with this data which will be in digital form you can change your code so you now transmit the text file data into the data base. You have to set up the data base server and users. This will allow clients to log in and use the data. You also have to code a GUI to display the data in graph of text/numerical format. It all sounds easy but it is a lot of code and even more debug.
Is the option of buying in a system open to you? SCADA is closer to control engineering or IT than it is to environmental or renewable engineering.

petethedrummer

Can you answer these 3 questions?

1. What type of device are you using to monitor your SOC and load readings?

2. What type of PLC will you be using?

3. What SCADA package will you be using?

I presume the college is supplying this equipment for you.

steifanc

labview is pretty cool software platform , it takes a lot of messing trying to get gui`s and plcs working together if yur not use to it , plus the online support is great , check out

www.ni.com

oh dont mind the prices they do student versions of everything at a fraction on the cost

drunken_munky52

petethedrummer wrote: »

Can you answer these 3 questions?

1. What type of device are you using to monitor your SOC and load readings?

2. What type of PLC will you be using?

3. What SCADA package will you be using?

I presume the college is supplying this equipment for you.

The college will be supplying the equipment. I dont know what PLC Il be using but Citect SCADA software would be the software.

To be exact, my main goal of this project is to allow me simulate the workings of a wind farm maintanence technician. I am in the process of gathering some of the tasks such a postion requires. For example, data logging and interpretation would be one aspect of the results, etc.

This project is been persued so I am more likely to be employed in the wind industry.

2011

My final year project used a PLC and a SCADA system called "Iconocs" as the HMI. The server software that I used was called "Kepware". Both the Iconics and Kepware were available in student versions free. The only difference with the student versions and the real thing is that they would time out after an hour and need to be restarted.

The SCADA system was the quickest part of the project. With the kind assistance of a member of staff I had a (very) basic SCADA system up and running in less than an hour. Once I had this it only took me a few days to have it looking really good. Iconics makes it all quite simple. It has nice features like "analogue colors". I used this to show the temperature of water in my process. When the water was at 10 DegC the it was shown as blue and when it was at 60 DegC it was red. As the water heated or cooled it would slowly change from one color to the other.

With Iconics (and many other types too) you can import photos of a process and superimpose readings from the instrumentation onto the picture. It is also easy to draw graphs of all of the variables in the process.

BTW it is possible to use Iconics to look at more than one PLC at a time.