Reliably Managing a Power Plant Portfolio
Balancing power is indispensable when acute imbalances in the electrical grid must be compensated for – however, successfully marketing power balancing is challenging. High demands are placed on the supply of balancing power: It must be reliably available within a very short time. The Trianel Municipal Utility Cooperative trusts automation solutions from WAGO to operate their virtual power plant: The entire communication system runs on the PFC200 Telecontrol PLC.
The energy transition is accelerating. After phasing out nuclear power, the federal government is now preparing to phase out coal-fired electrical generation. The first brown coal generating plants should be shut down by 2022. The resulting gap is being quickly filled by renewable energy suppliers like solar farms and wind turbines – their share of the electrical supply is supposed to rise from the current 30 percent to 80 percent by 2050. For the energy system, however, this transition to eco-power is anything but easy. Because solar and wind energy fluctuate depending on the weather, the electrical grid must be balanced by intelligent load management to keep it at a stable frequency of 50 hertz at all times. To achieve this, the large transmission network operators use “balancing power” or a “power reserve,” which they procure from registered suppliers. If there is not enough current in the network, these suppliers feed in reserve energy; during excess power situations, they withdraw current. This load management succeeds by using virtual power plants, which can accurately run their output up or down within seconds.
Advantages of WAGO Telecontrol Technology:
- WAGO’s flexible PFC200 telecontrol PLC provides the highest computing power in the smallest space
- Secure, economical access to distant plants, e.g. for monitoring energy distribution networks
- The easy-to-use remote control interface offers a high degree of cybersecurity
