This project was a pretty unusual one, with some interesting components and machinery to control. The concept is based on two 300kW Caterpillar generators with an emergency 80kW Generator requiring a PMS system from DEIF which we installed, programmed and commissioned.
The more exotic aspect of this project was the fact that the vessel is driven by a ABB frequency drive powering a reasonably sized 500kW induction motor. Additionally there are two thrusters, bow and stern also powered by frequency drives. The challenge was to implement a dynamic power control system that can in real time control the amount of power that each consumer can use, whilst giving priority to the propulsion and reducing the output of the other thrusters if required, depending on the priority mode. This was required because the combined use with a high power setting of the propulsion and even mid power setting of the bow thruster could stall out both 300kW paralleled generators, which would put the vessel in a dangerous situation from the resulting blackout.
Using a WAGO PLC processor for real time feedback and control to and from the frequency drives (VFDs) with communication with the DEIF units over ModbusTCP to determine the power available and other data this was conceptualized.
