Case Study
Project objective
There are several solar thermal plants, each with approximately 700 parabolic trough collectors.
Each sensor has a small PLC in charge of controlling the mirror itself.
In turn, each loop is centralized by another PLC, which in this case does not perform control, but acts as a gateway to optimize communications.
The solar field is controlled by 2 redundant PLCs in charge of managing the whole field.
The main challenge of this project was the design of the architecture for optimized communications.
The distributed control system is based on Rockwell Automation technology:
- It consists of 2 redundant ControlLogix controllers in the control room.
- 75 master controllers in the field of another 700 controllers for each mirror.
- The monitoring system (FTView) is mainly composed of: 2 redundant servers, 1 domain controller, 1 database server.
- The control system receives orders from a higher DCS.
Benefits obtained
High availability and centralized control and supervision of a plant with more than 750 PLCs.