With as many as 45 water-power plants and more than 100 wind-power plants connected to the power grid, ENERGA has a 30-percent share in the market and is the national leader in producing and supplying green energy. The Group cooperates also with local producers of energy from renewable resources, with numerous small water-power and bio-gas power plants connected to its grid.
ENERGA strengthens its market position and brand value through introducing new products, services, and customer-communication channels, as well as through investing in development and modernization of the electric power infrastructure, improving the company management, increasing the efficiency, and reducing the costs.
Within this framework, the Group has started modernization of its technological network and wide-area network. Since 2006, the Kalisz branch of ENERGA-OPERATOR SA has prepared and deployed an IT project which optimizes management of optical fiber resources. Thanks to using CWDM optical multiplexing systems from MICROSENS, which are based on single optical fibers, it was possible to free key resources necessary for other needs. The CWDM systems have been used for connecting high-voltage (110 kV) stations with SDH and GbE channels for both technological and office purposes.
To the extent of technological systems, the project includes data and voice transmission between high-voltage stations and power dispatch rooms. One of important project assumptions was standardization of the solution among all facilities to minimize the variety of used components. During the lab tests, two 10-port industry-grade switches from MICROSENS were selected. Another switch, compliant with the IEC-61850, IEEE-1613, and IEC 60870 standards, was selected after completing the certification.
The industrial-grade switches are used in the local-area network connecting equipment in high-voltage stations, such as devices for remote control, remote security, measurements, and voice communication. The network consists of multiple nodes with a ring topology within the station. Another area of applications is data transmission between facilities. Thanks to their modularity, the switches enable using replaceable SFP adapters whose ranges match the corresponding lengths of optical lines between the stations and dispatch rooms. For routing, IP telephony, and signal conversion (e.g. RS-232/Ethernet), third-party devices are used. All design and integration works in the Kalisz branch have been performed by the ENERGA-OPERATOR SA personnel.
This network concept has been deployed in tens of facilities, such as high-voltage stations, not only in the Kalisz branch, but also in other branches, as well as in wind-power stations, where deployments were performed by ZEP-TECH Sp. z o.o., an ENERGA Group company.
Since the first deployment, the solution was continuously developed and new functions were added to get the optimal results. In retrospect, it is clear that the assumptions, design, and used elements were proper and the solution has been running flawlessly, ensuring continuous and stable network operation.
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