Insights on the Future Wind Power from Connectivity
FD.BJX.COM.CN, Ran Xiaoran
It was freezing. Their fingers had been numb from cold, but there still remained hundreds of power lines, data cables and signal wires to be connected into the control cabinet. In the dim lighting, they furrowed the brows and watched deadly on the words on the lines to recognize them. There were so many complicated lines and cables in a mess, it’s common to have the problems of pulling, dropping and wrong connection sometimes, and even though they had worked overtime, the project owner was still urging: How much longer will it take? Combine to the grid as soon as possible…
It’s a typical application scenario of industrial connector in wind power industry. Like the nuts “never loose” on high-speed rails, for wind power, connector provides the guarantee for the stable wind power, information and data connection under severe environment, as well as the essential part that can exert influence on the entire project progress, guarantee the safe operation of equipment and promote high-quality equipment maintenance.
A market with huge potential
Along with the digital and intelligent development of renewable energy sources, the various subsystems of a complete set of wind power equipment, such as the pitch system, drive system, conversion system and master control system, all will need to be integrated for central processing. In other words, under the development tendency of intelligent wind power, in addition to power, there’s a great amount of demands of communication junctions and data transmission between equipment.
Connector is the “bridge” for power, data and signal transmission between the subsystems. Currently, China is one of the markets boasting the fastest growth of connectors globally, which is mainly applied in the fields of automobile manufacture, rail transit, power electronics, medical IT, etc. Along with the accelerated world’s energy transformation, the demands of energy and power industry for connectors is on sharp rise.
“In the past, only the connection work of relatively complicated subsystems was often done on site, for example, pluggable connectors were used only for the pitch system in wheel hub and the traveller of ‘nervous centralis’ between wheel hub and engine room. However, as the power of draught fan increases, more and more models of 4-5MW and above use medium voltage power cables, converter and transformer are generally seen in engine room, and pluggable connector becomes more acceptable to onshore wind power.” Jin Guanghai, manager of global energy industry of HARTING Technology Group, said to FD.BJX.COM.CN with respect to the application of industrial connector in wind power industry.
According to Jin Guanghai’s understanding, the demand for connectors in domestic wind power industry is not just from onshore wind power. As offshore wind power requires for much higher transmission and installation costs and longer construction period, almost all manufacturers are now stressing the concept of “module” in different forms currently, and the passion for pluggable connectors continues to soar.
“Currently, the pluggable connectors manufactured by HARTING have been taken as the standard hardware interface between the various systems of wind power industry, especially in the field of offshore wind power. At traditional power market, the power transmission interfaces on transformers, converters and switch cabinets are usually connected with ‘wiring nose and bolt’. But, in view of the severe environment and large investment of offshore wind power, pluggable connectors could be used to effectively reduce the time and labor cost of field wiring and disposing isolation, which has expanded the application space of connectors in wind power to the maximum.” Said Jin Guanghai.
As it were, driven by the dual forces of global energy transformation and “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”, on the one hand, renewable energy resources with wind power as the representative rise sharply, and on the other hand, the new electric power system has put requirements on a higher level for the flexible interaction and continuous high efficiency of “power supply – power grid – power load – energy storage”. At this point, digital technology was introduced, which is exactly synchronous with the market demand for digital transformation of power. In terms of the guarantee for the stable and reliable power transmission and signal transduction, industrial connector has been a key technology to reduce construction cost and promote the stable operation of power system.
Handling complexity by simplicity, reducing cost and increasing benefit.
Data show that wind power connector has been an essential part in initial investment, accounting for around 0.3% of the total investment. Currently, the wind power industry of China has stepped into the era of narrow margin of profit, and the lower electricity price and requirement for cost control force the supplier to “haggle over every ounce” at every link and “squeeze” the space to lower the cost bit by bit with technical innovation.
According to relevant person of HARTING, their connectors mainly help wind power with cost reduction and benefit increasing on three aspects:
In the early stage of installation, HARTING Han® series connectors adopt module design, the wiring of draught fan has been completed when it leaves the factory, and only connectors need to be plugged in on site, thus saving the time of installation potentially;
In terms of product maintenance and repair, Han® series connectors do not require for any special tools in case of any maintenance or repair. And without disturbing the operation of other systems, the subsystem, like traveller, could be replaced, thus reducing the downtime efficiently, promoting the efficiency of operation and maintenance, and reducing cost;
As for cost, Han® series connectors could be handled easily and fast by simple plugging and pulling, thus reducing the demands for professional workers with high technology to the largest extent and saved the expensive labor cost.
Furthermore, HARTING has launched the brand-new innovative Han-Modular® Domino module series. Considering the increasingly higher requirements for the large and heavy generators and for transmission/installation and other links of offshore wind power, as well as offshore wind power’s high requirements for anti-corrosion and electromagnetic shielding performance, HARTING released three new typical module connectors for draught fan, which could realize the synchronous transmission of power, signal and data and has saved space and materials by optimizing the total number of interfaces, thus saved cost and boosted affordable development of offshore wind power.
The connector is in palm size and has clear identifications and could effectively prevent mixed insertion, simple and effective, promoting the continuous and reliable operation of offshore wind power.
Now the offshore wind power supply chain system of China becomes complete gradually, and apparently, HARTING has been an essential link in the ecological circle of offshore wind power.
“Industrial connectors have been applied to offshore wind power more and more extensively, which has proved their value to the industry in achieving economy, reliability and sustainability." Jin Guanghai pointed out, "At present, the complete machine manufacturers and their supporting subsystem suppliers, as well as wind power operation and maintenance companies have become the main wind power customer groups of Haoting, and will be our main service target in the next few decades.”
It’s worth mentioning that, due to the expansion of connector in the offshore wind power industry chain, the construction companies of offshore wind power foundation and offshore booster station, as well as the manufacturing companies of special vehicles and ships which have risen in recent years for the transportation and installation of wind power, they are also constantly using the pluggable connector to shorten the site construction time and reduce complexity.
Industrial connectivity technology may provide a glimpse into the future of wind power. We can only say that under the large-scale expansion of the industry, the orientation of the market has been very obvious - handling complexity by simplicity, reducing cost and increasing benefit, this has become the general direction of all kinds of technology researches and developments.
A future of module
In the last century, Ford Motor popularized automobiles rapidly, mainly because it realized the complex "platform, module and extensible" automobile production through assembly line production. At present, under the guidance of technology and market, standardized production, eliminating redundant design, improving quality and efficiency have become the solid internal demand of the wind power industry.
In 2021, 159.11 million new wind power installations were added nationwide, including over 100 types of wind power models from 17 complete machine manufacturers with 3-10MW power of both onshore and offshore wind power. And with the large capacity of the unit, the tower is getting higher and higher, and the blades are getting longer and longer, which brings new transportation problems.
Apparently, the production mode of multiple varieties and multiple parts goes against cost reduction, but continuous cost reduction is the internal requirement of the industrial development. At this time, modular technology brings new imagination for the high quality development of wind power industry.
In January 2023, Vestas 15MW offshore wind turbine began to generate power. It’s the largest unit equipped with modular design in the industry. According to Vestas, the modular engine room components take full advantage of industry standards and are dimensioned to meet logistics standards for use in road, rail and Marine transport. After mass production in the future, the development cycle will be greatly shortened, and the cost of transportation and installation will be reduced.
It’s interesting that the development of industrial connector technology also presents the characteristics of miniaturization of product volume, low cost, integration of all kinds of signal transmission, high speed, modular assembly, and so on.
HARTING modular connector Han-Modular® Domino module series was born in response to this demand. It meets the industrial requirements to save installation space and reduce weight. Users who adopt this series can save up to 50% of installation space. As mentioned above, this series of products has been widely used in various electrical systems of domestic offshore wind power, boosting the sustainable and stable production and affordable development of offshore wind power.
"We believe that 'pluggable connectivity' is one of the key guarantees for the platform, modularity and scalability of the energy transformation represented by wind, light, hydrogen and stored energy. HARTING's decades of experience in high-speed rail, wind power, electric vehicles and other applications have shown that, through processes and technologies, pluggable connections can be just as reliable as 'hard connections'." Mr. Kim said.
Such confidence also depends on HARTING's concentration on product strategy and market strategy.
Since the 1940s, HARTING has always been adhering to two aspects: "pluggable connector" with regard to product strategy; high reliability applications such as rail transit, machinery and automation and robotics, energy and infrastructure with regard to market strategy, on the premise that the company is 100% controlled by the HARTING family, to ensure the continuity of the medium and long-term strategy; It is also a strong and simple promise to quality customers who stress on long-term cooperation: even after another few decades, HARTING will still be around to provide high-reliability pluggable connectors.
In 2022, HARTING bucked the trend of the pandemic, inflation and energy crisis, with sales amount exceeding EUR 1 billion for the first time. Asia-Pacific Region was the strongest growing market with a 25% increase to EUR 269 million. This is not only driven by the internal drive of the industrial connector industry, but also by the global consensus of industrial transformation, digitalization and green development.
It’s learned that, in 2022 and 2023, HARTING Technology Group plans to invest around EUR 80 million to develop new connectivity solutions to transportation, machinery, energy infrastructure and renewable energy to further accelerate the global energy transformation and climate goals.