ee technik monitors data processing centres in wind farms

Since the middle of 2017 the power produced by 127 wind power plants as well as the electricity supply for the highest data processing centre in the world has been monitored from the control room at WestfalenWind's location near Paderborn. The data centre's computers were installed in the tower of the wind energy plant and are directly powered by the plant.

These wind plant data centres are a pilot project run by Westfalen Wind IT GmbH & Co KG with the company's registered trade mark "WindCORES". The technology used for monitoring the data centre is provided by the "energy service portal" of the Husum-based company, ee technik, who supplied both the monitoring and the operational software for the wind farm and set up the control room from which the data processing centres are now monitored.

"The challenge this project presents is the power supply for the data processing centre. For operational purposes it has to be guaranteed that the supply is redundant, i.e. that there are two power supply units, thus ensuring that failures cannot occur," explains Daniel Schauer, Managing Director of ee technik. The interference-free concept was developed as part of the pilot project at the Software Innovation Campus of the University of Paderborn (SICP) together with dtm, a partner company.

Cameras are currently being installed in the wind energy plants as an additional safeguard; ee technik is installing a camera-based monitoring programme.

Daniel Schauer sees data processing centres as a potential business model for many wind farms: "In principle, these are possible wherever there is a good data connection."

www.eetechnik.de

windcores.de

www.westfalenwind.de