HOUSTON
WE HAVE[N TJaproblem
Mid-December 201^ in Bremen: The view from the large window
front of the central roam in the newly built wpd office building,
LUV, offers usual grey skies for this time of the year, fluttering
flags and the sight of the river Weser flowing into town on the
high tide. Nothing out of the ordinary. But at the same time,
things are a little rougher on the construction site for the Butendiek wind farm. Wind speeds of 25 métrés per second [corresponding to wind force 7] and waves almost five métrés high with
a sea current of half a métré per second. A speed which a good
freestyle swimmer would not be able to resist despite his best
efforts, and certainly not at a water température of a bitterly cold
eight degrees Celsius.
Ail these data are visible on the screen of Heiko Schierloh who
was already overseeing ail the activities within the offshore wind
farm of Butendiek in the remote monitoring control room when
not a single kilowatt hour of power had been generated. Schierloh
belongs to a team of 16 employées under the management of
Marc Rosenkranz who follow events in the offshore wind farm via
four large 52 inch monitors mounted to the walls and in front of
many other screens.
But the installation work on the 80 turbines and the transformer substation around 32 kilométrés from Sylt is not the only
site under observation - over l,d00 onshore turbines, scattered
around the whole world, are remotely monitored from this location. Round the clock in a three-shift System. Caméras installed
on the turbines supply live pictures. In addition, they receive socalled SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] data for
the technical monitoring of wind turbines via the internet.
The control room team also uses other data transmission Systems such as radar or the Automatic Identification System [AlS],
62
WE HAVE[N TJaproblem
Mid-December 201^ in Bremen: The view from the large window
front of the central roam in the newly built wpd office building,
LUV, offers usual grey skies for this time of the year, fluttering
flags and the sight of the river Weser flowing into town on the
high tide. Nothing out of the ordinary. But at the same time,
things are a little rougher on the construction site for the Butendiek wind farm. Wind speeds of 25 métrés per second [corresponding to wind force 7] and waves almost five métrés high with
a sea current of half a métré per second. A speed which a good
freestyle swimmer would not be able to resist despite his best
efforts, and certainly not at a water température of a bitterly cold
eight degrees Celsius.
Ail these data are visible on the screen of Heiko Schierloh who
was already overseeing ail the activities within the offshore wind
farm of Butendiek in the remote monitoring control room when
not a single kilowatt hour of power had been generated. Schierloh
belongs to a team of 16 employées under the management of
Marc Rosenkranz who follow events in the offshore wind farm via
four large 52 inch monitors mounted to the walls and in front of
many other screens.
But the installation work on the 80 turbines and the transformer substation around 32 kilométrés from Sylt is not the only
site under observation - over l,d00 onshore turbines, scattered
around the whole world, are remotely monitored from this location. Round the clock in a three-shift System. Caméras installed
on the turbines supply live pictures. In addition, they receive socalled SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] data for
the technical monitoring of wind turbines via the internet.
The control room team also uses other data transmission Systems such as radar or the Automatic Identification System [AlS],
62