Modeling and simulation of ICT network architecture for cyber-physical wind energy system

There are many challenges and concerns about the impact of integrating more and more wind power farms (WPFs) into the power grid. A WPF can be considered as a cyber-physical energy system (CP-ES) due to the coupling between the physical power system and the cyber communication network. While the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is the key concept to support a reliable operation, real-time monitoring and control of large-scale wind farms, it has been less addressed and rarely discussed. This work aims to design the ICT network architecture for a cyber-physical wind energy system (CP-WES) which consists of wind turbines, meteorological masts, substation, and a local control center. We consider different applications: operation data (analogue measurements & status information) from wind turbines, meteorological data from the meteorological towers, and protection & control data from intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). A real wind farm project (Zafarana-1, Egypt) has been considered as a case study. The proposed ICT network architecture is modeled and evaluated using OPNET Modeler. Network topology, link capacity, and end-to-end delay are three critical parameters investigated in this work. Our network model is validated by analyzing the simulation results.