Press Release

Regenerative energies are on the advance. More and more wind turbines are being installed worldwide, both onshore and offshore; most of them are organised into wind farms. In wind farms with wind turbines made by different manufactures, the IEC 61400-25 communication standard is intended to make communication possible. It is based on the IEC 61850 basic standard and will be available from mid-2009 as a PLC library as one of the TwinCAT supplementary products.

Like IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25 is object-oriented. This approach allows particularly simple configuration, diagnosis and maintenance of the communication. In addition to the IEC 61850 basic standard, the IEC 61400-25 contains descriptions for wind power-specific objects. However, the same communication services are used, as a result of which TwinCAT users can also access IEC 61850 data objects. The basic standard defines a general transmission protocol for protective and control equipment in medium and high voltage electrical substations.

The communication is physically based on Ethernet technology. TCP/IP and the Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS) have been implemented as protocols in TwinCAT PLC. The hierarchical data objects are communicated between a master control station and a wind turbine via MMS as the application layer.