PLC based Structure for Management and Control of Distributed Energy Production Units - ISBN 978-953-7619-63-3

Abstract

Today, the improvements in system communications have stimulated the implementation of distributed systems. These distributed systems are then usually managed by a centralized supervisory platform, commonly known as a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). This strategy reaches different fields, from agriculture, to industry, building automation, etc (Figueiredo & Botto, 2005), (Figueiredo & Sá Costa, 2007). An optimal-performance supervisory system has the objective to allocate the minimal needed power generation to the traditional power plant in order to produce the electricity at a minimal economic cost. This paper presents a supervisory system to monitor and control energy production and consumption, in an optimized way. The developed system consists of a network of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), controlling locally the electricity production in each source, and measuring, in a real time base, the power consumption and production. The PLC network is parameterized according to the traditional Master-Slave requirements, using the PROFIBUS communication (Siemens, 2001). A SCADA system is implemented in order to supervise the entire PLC network. This monitoring and control strategy is simulated based on the requirements of the renewable energy park that is being assembled in Évora University. This experimental park is founded by an European project (PETER) with Évora University – Portugal and Extremadura University – Spain. The PETER park is a renewable energy park that plans to include a photovoltaic unit (10 KW), a wind generator (1KW) and a biomass unit (75KW).