Remote Management In Action

Anvil Mobile have been supplying  fixed IP data SIMs to enable remote 3G access to wind turbines for some time now.  But, have never visited a site or seen the wind turbines in action until yesterday. One of our customers, a wind turbine site owner and a farmer by trade, had to reconfigure his 3G router and wasn’t comfortable with the technical challenge. Managing Director Ian and Business Development Executive Philip happened to have a meeting arranged in the same general area so volunteered to go on site to make the necessary changes. This was to help out a customer but also because they wanted to see a turbine in action and boys like toys – the bigger, the better.


Arriving on site and parked up right next to the turbine the first thing that was noticed was how quiet it was. The blades were turning and generating electricity but there was hardly any noise at all. This surprising as the press and media always talks about noise as a major problem. Perhaps it was just this type of wind turbine, manufactured in the Netherlands, that was quieter than other types, but this one was almost silent.

Connecting to the router via WLAN the changes that were required could be made in just a few minutes and also enabled a feature on the router that would mean the customer didn’t have to re-boot the router if it lost power or signal. This feature (ping re-boot) is very useful when the router is in a remote area and it can be a pain and an expense to have to visit the site personally just to press a button.

The router is the small blue box on its side with an external (white) antenna cable.











The site owner doesn’t manage the control system that keeps the turbine working safely and efficiently. This is all done by the manufacturer in the Netherlands who can see the control panel information which is linked to the system that controls all of the mechanics keeping the turbine working properly.
  
After calling the engineer in the Netherlands to make sure he had full access to the management systems we headed off to the next meeting after taking one last photo.  An interesting day at the office and as you will see from the photo fantastic weather for once!

Wind turbines and remote management of control systems in rural areas.

Applications & Case Studies

Wind turbines and remote management of control systems in rural areas.

Wind turbines need to be constantly monitored and managed according to the local weather conditions. There was a recent case that hit the TV and press where a wind turbine could not be shut down in gale conditions and was destroyed by fire. The pictures were dramatic and the cost of the incident included the valuable equipment that was destroyed, the clean-up operation and the lost revenue from the electricity that was no longer being generated.

Wind farms by necessity are located in rural areas where there is often no internet connectivity available using traditional fixed line connections. The cost of providing an internet connection is prohibitive in many of these locations as new cables have to be run from the nearest telephone junction. Sometimes satellite can be the answer, however, it is also expensive in terms of equipment, installation and running costs.

The latest solution to the internet connectivity problem is to use the, now mature, nationwide 3G network with some added capabilities that standard consumer grade SIMs don’t currently support. By using the 3G coverage that the mainstream network operators provide, Anvil’s data service with fixed IP addresses on the SIM allow for remote access to the control systems.  So, connectivity is now easy to establish, but issues such as security and reliability have to be addressed. The first part of the answer is to avoid sending any data over the public internet. This is accomplished using a private APN to establish a layer 2 connection and then secure the link with either VPN encryption using appropriate hardware devices such as an integrated router/firewall device - or – for larger implementations, Anvil can even build a private managed VPN over the 3G network using private IP address ranges so the network device housing the SIM can be simple and inexpensive.

The reliability and performance issues are addressed by providing an un-contended internet connection so that the data does not go over the public network. This means that although all mobile 3G networks have variable performance based on factors such as atmospheric conditions and congested cells (unlikely in rural areas), the stability of the connection is greatly enhanced.

In this application note we have concentrated on wind turbines, however the same capabilities can be used for any control or management system with an IP address. This includes Video surveillance and monitoring systems.