POWER August 2021 - 16

FOCUS ON O&M
issues that arise from the diversification
of the energy sector, a situation that creates
both opportunities and challenges.
This diversification is helping prevent
disruption of supply and maintaining
security, giving the network additional
resilience as well as creating new investment
platforms, particularly support for
smaller renewable projects.
Capturing Data
Thanks to the diversification of energy
production resources, utility operators
must manage a much wider portfolio of
assets smarter and more efficiently. This
is only possible through capturing, storing,
and interpreting huge quantities of
data from physical assets. RTUs are the
technology capable of achieving this-
one of the reasons they are now a critical
part of many power generation and distribution
operating systems.
Put simply, RTUs transform vast
amounts of data into useful management
information, while also being able
to act autonomously to keep equipment
working correctly. As power plants often
are required to inform the grid operator
in real time about the electricity they're
generating, operators need to know the
measures of active and reactive power,
phase voltage, and connection status
of switches, among other things-all issues
that can be supported by telemetry,
with data going to control centers, and
adjustments of power generation based
on the requirements of the grid operator.
The digitization of the energy sector
is growing rapidly, especially the use of
RTUs. In the past, maintenance engineers
didn't have visibility of asset conditions
within the grid. Therefore, they
had to adopt a reactive-rather than
proactive-approach, as the technology
didn't exist to inform them which asset
required attention and when. However,
deployment of RTU systems is changing
this, creating smart grids that help utility
firms optimize service to customers.
The scale of the challenge facing the
power generation industry is intimidating.
By 2040, the International Energy
Agency (IEA) predicts annual global electricity
consumption will be 70% higher
than in 2015, in part due to the continued
electrification of many sectors, including
transportation. Electricity demand also
is expected to increase as more of the
world gains access to power. This huge
increase poses a serious question: How
can nearly twice as much electricity be
supplied from a more fragmented generation
landscape to a more demand16
ing,
urbanized consumer, away from the
physically remote points of generation?
Simultaneously, penalties for outages
are growing. Recently, Britain's energy
regulator fined three electricity suppliers
a total of £10.5 million ($14.5 million) for
a power outage in August 2019, which affected
one million customers and caused
transport chaos.
Around the globe, customer demand,
tighter regulation, and renewable methods
of energy generation are rising.
According to the IEA, China is the undisputed
growth leader in renewables and
will account for more than 40% of the
total global clean energy mix by 2022. In
India, renewable capacity is expected to
more than double during the same time.
With such a diverse range of assets
covering generation, distribution, and
consumption, technology is the only
way of creating a smart grid. In particular,
RTUs are critical, even though just
a small component of this network, as
they capture data from a wide range of
assets and convert it into effective management
information.
Asset Diversification
A diverse range of power generation
types within the grid creates challenges.
Assets such as wind turbines (Figure 3)
and solar cells are often located in harsh,
remote environments. Maintaining continuity
of supply from the point of generation
to the consumer becomes harder as
a result, requiring the careful and permanent
monitoring of equipment. To make
matters even more difficult, these remote
locations often receive only satellite
or sparse Global System for Mobile
Communications (GSM) radio signals.
However, help is at hand. Recent advances
make it possible for each RTU
to act autonomously or communicate
by radio with a telemetry data gateway
connected to a cloud computing infrastructure
equipped with appropriate software
capable of presenting processed
information to management. Reliable
low-band telemetry can collect data from
most assets in the energy sector, where
it acts as a canary in the coal mine, predicting,
diagnosing, and communicating
outage events.
A key advantage of RTUs is that they
perform autonomous control in real time
and then report to SCADA (supervisory
control and data acquisition) systems
that everything is under control. At the
SCADA interface, operators can then
supervise operations by setting new
known performance indicators or updatwww.powermag.com
3.
Power generators know the importance
of communicating with their equipment, particularly
systems located in remote areas,
far from the control room. Remote telemetry
units enable the needed data gathering
and communication with field operations.
Courtesy: Ovarro
ing instructions-open/close this, start/
stop that, for example-for RTUs to then
act upon on location.
The data fed to control centers can
include measures of active and reactive
power, and the phase voltage and connection
status of switches. Systems also
can monitor utility meters. Solutions can
help adjust the power generated, and
monitor power generation facilities.
RTUs Fit Well for Power Sector
This data-gathering and equipment monitoring
capability makes RTUs an ideal fit
for the energy industry. RTUs are resilient,
and capable of withstanding harsh
site environments. They can also operate
with minimal use of local power, while
still retaining the necessary processing
power to autonomously perform control
algorithms. As an example, Ovarro's
TBox LT2 RTU model (Figure 4) opens
up new automation possibilities, simplifying
systems engineering and enabling
critical industries-including power generation-across
the globe to remotely
control and monitor their applications.
4. The TBox LT2 remote telemetry unit
(RTU) is an example of an internet-ready RTU
for automation and monitoring applications.
It offers functionality from a single compact
unit. Courtesy: Ovarro
POWER | August 2021
http://www.powermag.com
POWER August 2021

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