SIS – NORCE COLLABORATION FOR PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE OF MICROGRIDS

Through the SMARTech project, the Romanian-Norwegian team (SIS – NORCE) aims to meet the requirements of the energy transition to the Smart Grid, starting from the existing infrastructures with the implementation of renewable energy equipment, storage solutions, smart consumption strategies, monitoring and energy efficiency. The development of smart microgrids requires special attention, as it is necessary to move to the concept of Microgrid Technology (MT). The project is financed with the support of grants granted by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA financial mechanism 2014-2021, within the “Energy Program in Romania”.

smart microgrid
smart microgrid

Founded in 1990, the SIS company underwent some organizational transformations, reaching its current form of joint-stock company, in 1994, in a short time establishing itself as one of the most important suppliers of solutions and services in the field of industrial automation, proving capacity and experience in designing and the implementation of complex solutions, on a wide range of software, hardware and network platforms, currently ranking among the top system integrators in Romania.

NORCE (Norwegian Research Centre) is an independent Norwegian research institute that conducts research for both the public and private sectors to facilitate informed and sustainable choices for the future. NORCE offers research and innovation studies in energy, care and health, climate, environment, society and technology. Our partner’s solutions address key challenges for society and contribute to value creation locally, nationally and globally.

The activity of the NORCE partner within the Smartech project always ends with a form of reporting, which complements our activity, as a support, both because the information transmitted is correct, but also because the amount of work submitted to carry out the activity is reduced through joint involvement.

The technical reports sent by NORCE, with more friendly explanations than those found in the specialized literature, clarified many aspects related to the way a microgrid is dimensioned (the way we calculate the technical specifications of the energy production equipment that make up a microgrid) . For example, both in specialized literature, but also the websites of traders, which guide users to dimension their components themselves, using different methods that can introduce errors.

The friendly way of indicating the mathematical formulas in the delivered deliverables, the examples used to enhance the understanding, but also the explanations and the interpretation of the results helped us to transform the mathematical algorithm provided by NORCE into Matlab code. Thus, the work done by NORCE to calculate mathematically and the work of the SIS coordinator to model using Matlab led to the realization of a model for sizing a microgrid used as:

1. the Smartech platform module for sizing the microgrid

2. tool from the Smartech platform called “Fill in the blank” that makes an automatic word report based on the simulation of dimensioning data

smart microgrid
smart microgrid

The Smartech platform developed at this time uses several data sources and the main goal is to implement a predictive maintenance technology for microgrids. Real-time data collected remotely from SCADA applications are archived in historical data and analyzed based on another tool developed by SIS with machine learning algorithms of fault indicators and health calculation ( tool developed with Matlab) . These resulting parameters are displayed on the screens of the Smartech platform (developed with Matlab).

In the specialized literature, the use of predictive maintenance technology proposes the following:

  • Increase equipment life  by about 15%
  • Downtime reduction  of about 20%
  • Reducing the cost of electricity  by up to 65%

As a social and environmental impact, the Smartech platform is intended to reduce the energy consumption of high efficiency components, when there is a defect in the system or they have an increased degree of wear and implicitly a short lifespan. By indicating the next revision, under safe conditions, the maintenance team will be signaled , the system parameters will be monitored in real time and the remaining lifetime of the equipment will be constantly calculated. In this way, the cost of accidental and unwanted shutdowns will be reduced.