Statkraft needs to verify the flow capacity in a hydro tunnel between two reservoirs that are a part of the catchment area for Aura Hydro Power plant. The verification will require continuous measurements for about 6 months to catch “all states” of reservoir levels and gate positions determining tunnel flow.
The measurement location is challenging as it requires a “sensor frame” to be lowered down a 40 meter deep shaft to reach the tunnel. The sensor frame has been designed by Sweco and built by Statkraft to achieve correct positioning of FDB’s ADCP-instruments for water velocity measurements.
FDB’s concept for field measurement systems :
- Make “converters” adapted to communication with different sensor types and converts this to protocol (MQTT).
- A separate unit with processing / analytics, storage and communication that can handle several “converters”.
The “converters” typically have low power demand that can be supplied by PoE (Power over Ethernet). This achieves the use of standard ethernet cables for both power and data / signal. With these features we can make any sensor smart and a part of the “Internet of Things” (IoT).
The ADCP-instruments are advanced instruments, with their own software to control how measurements are to be performed, making the “converter” more advanced as well. We have solved this by up-skilling valuable knowledge on microcontrollers. We hope to publish a separate article or white paper on this soon.
Converter RS-232 to MQTT for ADCP-instruments
HydroCord Mobile - Main unit for storage, data processing, and communication.
The field measurement system will be placed in the tunnel “gate house” at about 850 masl (in Norway) and will only be accessible by snowmobile in wintertime. Even though the field measurement system will have disk and database to store all measurements and analytics results locally, it will also get 4G communication. With 4G we can monitor the system and get warnings if an error occurs. It is better to travel to the site with snowmobile than to arrive in spring and then discover that something has gone wrong with the measurements.
The 4G capability means that we can stream data to user interfaces and make them available for Statkraft as soon as we measure and analyse. The user interfaces (Grafana) only require a web browser to show, no special software needed for the user. We also add public data sources, in this case from NVE/Sildre, to get the reservoir levels for a more complete foundation. The reservoir levels are classified as sensitive which means that we get them with a 3-month delay compared to what we measure and process live.
- Flow (local analyis)
- Water velocity (local measurement)
- Water temperature (local measurement)
- Pressure (local measurement)
- Reservoir levels (public data source)
The field measurement system will go through final testing before Summer and commissioned on site in Autumn to monitor flow capacity in the hydro tunnel. The field measurement system is designed for self-service commissioning by Statkraft. Support by FDB will be provided digitally, simple and cost efficient!
This has been (and is) a good and exciting assignment for FDB where we work with the complete data value chain, from establishing physical sensors to analytics and user interfaces.
In short: Unmanned field measurement system that can integrate “any” sensor, do local analytics, and user interfaces in web browser that show live measurements and results. Integrating public data sources in addition is a breeze.
If you are curious as to how this can be applied to challenges and use in your plants and industry, please contact us here .
FDB also has another field measurement system, for continuous turbine efficiency measurements, in assignment that has been providing live measurements and analytics for 2 years – you can read more about it here.
ADCP-instruments for water velocity measurements
