NTE and FDB commissioned the HydroCord system for Byafossen hydro power plant in 2024. The system gathers raw data in the form of a mix of analog signals. These are both new sensors mounted as a part of the commissioning and copying signals that are a part of the process control system. This provides a significantly better starting point for analyses and monitoring than traditional data extraction from SCADA.
For this system we are doing things a little differently to our regular setup. The diode traffic from HydroCord (raw data) is sent directly onto NTE’s network and data processing is rather done centrally on a virtual machine.
The analysis for frequencies and bearings has been given special attention. We have implemented regular monitoring based on ISO 20816. In addition to this, thanks to the adaptability of HydroCord, we have also added monitoring of other frequencies.
Hydrocort Architecture - Data quality sketch
We are also looking into the possibilities to monitor frequencies for situations where the units are running at variable speeds (typically in sequences for start and stop). This is to be able to show and monitor wear and tear in these sequences.
The analyses and results from the HydroCord data processing are sent to the NTE data platform (AVEVA PI). This increases the values of the systems NTE already has for visualizing and distributing power plant insights.