Tasmania, AUSTRALIA —The HVDC station is inland from the ocean, surrounded by some of Tasmania’s most pristine bushland.

Just outside of George Town in northern Tasmania, at the Basslink converter station owned by the Singaporean listed entity Keppel Infrastructure Trust (KIT), an innovative collaboration is breaking new ground with a power transmission cloud-based online monitoring solution.

When it first went into operation, the 295-kilometer (183 miles) link was the longest submarine power cable in the world and the first interconnection between Tasmania and the Australian state of Victoria. The close collaboration between the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and the operators considerably accelerates the development of innovative solutions and new ideas by expanding the pool of firsthand experience, skills and resources that projects can draw from.

Joska Ferencz, the Chief Operating Officer, and Greg Mather, an engineer at Basslink, have been working together since the interconnector began operations in 2006. Their most recent collaboration involves work on the new the new Siemens Energy digitalization platform, which works by processing data from substations to a cloud-based platform, where operators can access applications and dashboards to gain insights into the system’s actual status. This allows the entire team 24/7 access to the interconnector’s historical and live operating data, enabling them to directly access the customized results via the Internet and view live data remotely, providing a gateway into the world of the Internet of Energy (IoE), big data analytics and digital services.

„Today’s operators face several challenges,“ explained Ferencz, „including the increasing share of renewables in the power grid and their hard-to-predict feed-ins. Plant engineers need to plan ahead and make the right decisions to ensure optimized operation.“

“Digitalization will be a complete game changer.” added Mather.

“Digitalization holds huge opportunities,” Ferencz agreed, “and one-way connectivity makes sure that data can only flow in one direction and never exposes the HVDC control system to the outside. This means that intrusion into the substation via the Internet isn’t possible.”

Siemens Energy Project Manager Bernd Koppenhoefer, based in Nuremberg, Germany, almost 16 500 kilometers (10252 miles) away from the station in George Town, is driving Siemens Energy’s side of the project, working in close, “virtual” collaboration with Mather, Ferencz and the rest of the team. “We began by developing an overall HVDC concept for data connectivity, including how to use the data and create value with it. And now we’re working together to further develop and adapt this for Basslink,” he said. 

Basslink operators can now tap into huge historical data lakes that already lie dormant in their transmission systems and assets, enabling engineers to analyze them, improve operations and unlock better operational efficiencies. To be displayed on dashboards, the data enables Basslink’s maintenance crew to easily identify the devices initiating the most significant events and then address the major challenges such as forecasting ambient temperature and power flow capability. The team can then initiate a review for root cause analysis and performance improvements, meaning maintenance crews have the tools to autonomously perform the function of experienced staff.

   By continuously collecting important operating data, the team can help manage load flows, detect system anomalies, and track faults fast and efficiently, bolstering network availability. “Our objective is to maximize our availability and minimize service interruptions – and ensure the facility has a longevity over its extended design life,” says Ferencz.

“The automation provided by digitalization,” adds Mather, “allows a more efficient use of the existing resources while removing the human factor inconsistencies. Plus, it releases people from the mundane tasks of recording operation counts of circuit breakers and transformers.”

Source: Siemens Energy