Happy Halloween to all you ghouls and goblins out there that celebrate this ancient feast.  Or at least those out there that will take any excuse to dress up and eat too many sweets.

I just got back from my European OPC tour. Now I’m scrambling to come up with a costume.  I think I’ll put on a hooded cloak, print out a blue paper mask and go as the ‘Blue Screen of Death’.  What could possibly be scarier that that?

While garlic necklaces, candle lit rituals and special gestures might protect you against denizens of the Otherworld, you probably need something a bit more tangible for protection against foes of the IT world.

Personally I think that something like the OPC Security Gateway or the OPC Redundancy Broker would be more effective in protecting you OPC installations, than dancing under the moon in an ancient grove swinging a dead animal around your head.

You can download the OPC products and try them out at anytime.  Of course, if you want to go the moonlight dance route, tonight would be your best chance. J

Happy Halloween and Stay Safe.

Earlier this week I was presenting at the MatrikonOPC European User group conference in Barcelona. It was very well attended (I’m going to attribute to irresistible draw of OPC rather than the warm weather and sunny beaches.)  Many of the participants also attended one of the two concurrent OPC training sessions (one in English, one in Spanish).  I would say the highlight of the conference would be the customer presentations (with the fabulous food being a close personal second).  One example would be the great presentation from E-On Energy on an OPC hub-and-spoke implementation for several Spanish wind farms.   E-On is pulling data from multiple turbines using OPC servers and is performing on-line calculations using the OPC Calculator.  Their architecture also make use of OPC Tunneller and the OPC HistoryLink for remote access and guaranteed data delivery.  Another presentation from Air Liquide also demonstrated use of OPC Calculator and OPC Tunneller.  In their application, OPC Calculator and the OPC Server for Foxboro DCS were used to perform optimization calculations based on real-time data, and provide feedback to the control system.  OPC Tunneller is used to provide remote access between the main office and the remote offices. 

There were good questions and spirited discussions on all the end user presentations.  Everyone had a good time, and learned some new things about OPC.  In fact several attendees have followed up after the conference looking for help in implementing similar solutions for their projects.  This is the sort of information sharing and discussions that a user group is all about.  The OPC community in action.

Speaking of the OPC community, next up is the DevCon.  If you’re at the conference in Munich, make sure you look me up.

Hola!. I’ve been brushing up on some Spanish and getting my presentations put together for the OPC User Group in Barcelona next week.  It is shaping up to be a good time. As the marketing material says: “Meet with the industry’s most forward-thinking professionals and take advantage of a wide array of technical presentations, case studies, best practices, discussion forums and a technology expo”  All that OPC talk and a beautiful Mediterranean coast city.  What more can you ask for?  Oh yah.  It’s free.

If you haven’t signed up, there are still a few spots available to register.  Hope to see many of you there.  

Now, back to practicing those important phrases…  “Dos cervezas, por favor”

As I peruse the news and RSS feeds, I look for topics of interest that pop up from different sources. This week wind power seems to be a hot topic. Maybe the economic upheaval and energy concerns are putting green technology back in the limelight.  This article talks about New Jersey’s goal to become a world leader in wind-generation.  Garden State Offshore Energy, a joint venture of PSE&G Renewable Generation and Deepwater Wind, was chosen to build a $1 billion, 345 megawatt wind farm in the ocean about 16 miles southeast of Atlantic City.  I can see their new tagline now “Welcome to Jersey.  It really blows here.”  OK maybe that needs some more work…  It’s not just North America getting in on the act either.  This article on CR4 talks about Argentinea getting in on the wind generation business.  What’s interesting about this one, is that the park grew from humble beginnings. The park began in 1994 with only two windmills feeding a small town, and has grown up to become the largest in South America.   It has a total of 26 windmills and an annual production of 60.9 million kWh.

It might just be that I got wind power on the brain, since I just finished some work for the upcoming CanWEA Tradeshow and Conference happening in Vancouver, BC this month, October 19-22^nd.  (I’ll be in Barcelona at the OPC UG that week, or I probably would be there.)  It is Canada’s biggest renewable energy event after all.   I also submitted an abstract to be presented at WINDPOWER 2009 Conference & Exhibition taking place May 4 – 7, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois.  It is being billed as “The world’s largest and most anticipated annual event for wind energy.”  Now how can that not be exciting?  Each year, wind energy professionals gather at this event to learn about the latest industry developments and technologies, review new products and services.  We will be there this year talking about OPC and wind power.  (What else would we be talking about?)

One of the big challenges in wind parks is getting vast amounts of data from geographically dispersed sources to the people that need it, reliably, in a form they can use.  Of course the first step is getting connectivity for common protocols turbines use like Modbus, or popular wind farm SCADA platforms such as Rockwell Allen-Bradley, Siemens and GE Fanuc.  Another consideration is connectivity with common electrical utility protocols like DNP 3.0 and IEC 60870-5.  OPC has got all that covered.  OPC solutions for guaranteed data delivery, at the source historization and redundancy also come in handy.

Typical wind-power developers, owners and service companies often manage multiple wind farms, across large areas, consisting of different turbine models from different companies.  They got to take basic measurements such as production and power factors, as well as gather analysis data such as temperatures, pressures, response times and fault indicators.   Time is money.  To be competitive and meet time critical demands of power purchasers, wind-farm operators need to be able to quickly and reliably evaluate the electrical status of their park.  OPC definitely fills that role.  As Dylan said “The answer is blowin’ in the wind”.