HARTING to help streamline wind power industry

The wind power industry is streamlining its global manufacturing and installation processes to boost efficiency. Costs are also set to be further reduced as systems grow even bigger. The industry is relying on technical optimisation along the value chain and over full lifetime of installations as a way to keep investment and operating costs as low as possible and maximise profitability.

HARTING will be showcasing new products and solutions at the HUSUM Wind trade Fair (September 10-13, 2019) that support this trend towards cost reduction.

The new Han industrial connectors allow for rear mounting of interfaces in switch  cabinets in wind turbine (WTs). With this option, all connection-related works can be done from within the switch cabinet. In addition, many installation steps can be upstreamed into assembly, saving expensive man-hours of technicians. The rear mounting option is available for both the Han B metal and Han B plastic housings. This allows the customer to improve the manufacturing process of the wind turbine.

HARTING will also showcase its new compact Han 1A connector series. The new industrial connector is made of high-performance plastic, is lightweight and requires little space. Han 1A is suitable for IP20 connections in switch cabinets as well as  outdoor requirements. Due to its modularity and a variety of different deployment scenarios, it is particularly suitable for sensors, small drives and lighting.

 

Increasing digitisation, in combination with larger wind turbines, is helping the wind-power industry with steadily increasing data volumes. Consequently, the smooth and fast transmission of this data is absolutely essential for many wind farm operators.

To meet this trend, HARTING is focusing on the new fibre-optic rotary transmitter with bidirectional data transmission. The transmitter meets the requirements for even faster exchange of large data packets between the nacelle and the rotating hub. The wear-free and maintenance-free system offers end-to-end fibre-optic networking of the entire system – from the tower base over the nacelle to the hub.

 

 

To support this system, HARTING developed the MICA (Modular Industry Computing Architecture). MICA makes it possible to store, evaluate, and process data directly in the application environment and can be configured with individual hardware, freely available software and suitable interfaces – in a manner that entirely meets customers’ individual requirements.

HARTING has been involved in wind energy for over 35 years.