Location
Bremerhaven
Year
Since 2015
Products
FW-5000, FW-50, BCU-50, FW-5
Protocol
IEC 60870-5-101, IEC 60870-5-103, IEC 60870-5-104
As a network operator in the maritime city of Bremerhaven, the service portfolio of wesernetz Bremerhaven GmbH includes the transport, storage and measurement of energy and drinking water. Its supply area comprises approx. 120,000 inhabitants, an area of 7,763 hectares with a pipeline network over 2,700 kilometres long.
The electricity network covers about 1,015 km of this and has 26,000 domestic electricity connections, 305 km of which are medium voltage cables (20kV). The annual electricity sales of wesernetz Bremerhaven amounted to 339.4 million kWh in 2018.
The SAE telecontrol systems FW-5000, FW-50, BCU-50, FW-5 (CPU generation series5+ and series5e) as well as the SG-Kombisave have been used since 2011 for monitoring and operational management of gas, water, heat and electricity systems.
In the field of electricity, the tasks include feed-in management for RES plants, local network automation and the telecontrol equipment of control stations and transformer stations up to 20 kV. Depending on the area of application, various components, such as programmable logic controllers from Siemens (PLC S7), short-circuit and earth-fault direction indicators from Kries and on-site visualization systems (PC S7 400 H) are connected to the telecontrol equipment.
In the 417 plants of wesernetz Bremerhaven, telecontrol equipment from ABB and Siemens is installed in addition to SAE telecontrol technology.
From the city of Bremen to Bremerhaven two redundant, exclusive fibre optic lines are used. A classic telecontrol master station is not used. DSL, SHDSL, GSM, UMTS and LTE are used for internet-based communication. The data is sent from the substations to the control station via IEC 60870-5-104 protocol. The IEC 60870-5-101 as well as the -103 and -104 protocol is used between the substations and the devices connected to them.
Starting from the Bremerhaven headquarters, two redundant, exclusive fiber optic rings – divided into a north and south ring – were set up. All 24 node stations are connected via the FO rings, from which approx. 40 sub-rings in copper technology branch off. These are used to connect the downstream grid and GDR stations, heating plants, water shafts and plants.
Prelude to the major project intelligent SUS
The feasibility study and the economic efficiency audit in spring 2015, accompanied by the engineer’s office Klein Herrn Jost, marked the start of the major project “intelligent secondary unit substations” of wesernetz Bremerhaven in cooperation with SAE, which was realised from 2018. Due to outdated technology and contractual situations, extensive and cheap data transmission was no longer available. Thanks to the use of new technology, this is no longer a problem.
Thanks to the upgrade, new requirements from network management can also be easily met. Henceforth all MV network stations will carried out in a switchable design to ensure shorter downtimes in the event of a fault. Quality measurements in the electricity sector and heat monitoring at various network weak points are also implemented. The reconstruction of the junction station could be reduced to a minimum in each case through close coordination, good preparatory work and optimized processes, so that no plant had to go without remote monitoring or remote control for more than 2-3 days.
The necessary arrangements and resource planning for the integration of the new technology, which provides VPN encryption right into the station or protocol converter, were efficiently carried out.
Highest possible IT security
To ensure the highest possible IT security, secured protocols (https, ftps) were used.
In this context, the central certificate and user administration is also worth mentioning.
Its use shows that new, future-oriented paths are being taken in the project. Furthermore, the telecontrol structure in the secondary unit substation is almost completely redundant in terms of network technology, power supply and UPS.
Cross-company collaboration
Overall, many companies were involved in the implementation of the project. Therefore, the various interfaces to be operated represent a special challenge.
The management of the network technology has been carried out by the company BTC. The fibre optic rings are operated by EWE Netz. The necessary FO extensions were carried out by the company Katthagen and MWB Elektrotechnik.
Necessary changes in the control system are were parameterized by the wesernetz operations management department, with BTC providing additional know-how.
The new subrings which need to be set up for the majority of the plants to be monitored are have been pre-planned by wesernetz and implemented in cooperation with EWE Netz TK and the technical service wesernetz Bremerhaven.
Setup and pre-commissioning took place in parallel to existing operation without failure of data transmission.
Decommissioning is were delegated to the persons involved in the project, depending on the type of plant. For these project-related processes, further agreements with various partners have of course been met.
The following companies were involved among others:
To be able to continue to handle the project that successfully, the on-site appointments with the respective contact persons as well as the operating personnel were continuously conducted.
The project manager Oliver Martens explains that the project has gone very well so far and
despite fast-paced scheduled reconstruction dates, the schedule was kept. This cannot be taken for granted in a project of this size.
“The main reason for the success is mainly due to the executing entities, the contractual partner SAE, wesernetz Bremerhaven and the executing company EWE Netz. The employees of EWE Netz are extremely familiar with the technology to be installed from SAE and Kapsch and are still highly motivated even after more than 12 months and 24 converted systems”.
In mid-September 2019, the completion of the first lot in the “Bremerhaven data transmission” project was celebrated with all participants. The size and complexity of the project were once again emphasized by Mr. Malte Link, the head of wesernetz’s planning and construction division. The project is special because of the number of stations and the innovative data monitoring.
An expansion of the monitoring of gas pressure regulator systems is already being planned.
That way project work is fun!
Mr. Martens emphasizes that working with everyone involved is a lot of fun, even if it is challenging and exciting sometimes.
The short-term coordination, the uncomplicated exchange and the technical support always lead to a positive result.
He especially praises his colleagues and the project managers at SAE and EWE Netz.
“As you can see from these lines, we are dealing with exciting and complex technology that will accompany and benefit us for many years.”
Oliver Martens,
Project manager wesernetz Bremerhaven