The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône is responsible for the deve-lopment and operation of the Rhone, France’s most powerful river. Consequently, CNR has become the leading French producer of exclu-sively renewable energy.

The Bollène solar farm in the Vaucluse region in southern France is part of the development of the Donzère-Mondragon hy-dro-electric power plant. This site has gradually be-come a cluster for produ-cing renewable energy including hydro-electric, solar, and wind.

PROFILE• Subject :

SCADA• Process :

Solar panels • Client :

Compagnie Nationale du Rhône

• Integrator : Ineo MPLR Agence Industrie

• Date :2011 • Installed base :

- Panorama E² - ago controllers - Ethernet - Fibre optic loop - Harting switch - Kepware OPC server - SpeechUnit modem - TCP/IP Modbus

Communications

AIMS

Build an ecosystem friendly solar farm supervised by French software.

Centralize all information : alarms, “on-call” functions, weather stations, security on site ...

Solar farm Bollène, Vaucluse.Development of an hydroelectric power plant.

In order to promote renewable energy and diversify energy production sources, the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) has built a solar farm at the Bollène site in the Vaucluse region, France.

CNR chose Codra’s Panorama E² SCADA solution for three reasons: its easy learning curve, its open design for working with other systems, and the simplicity for re-using developments at other sites.

The project, managed by INEO MPLR Agence Industrie, went into production in March 2011.

This 100% French partnership, valuable to CNR, has proven so successful that a new solar farm has been installed at Beaucaire in the Gard region.

SUCCESS STORY

BENEFITS

Better production monito-ring of the various parks.

Modelling facilities.

Simplification of use.

Panorama E² SCADA software installed at solar farms

Solar farm sites are selec-ted based on a feasibility study that factors in the proximity of the power grid, the rehabilitation of unusable zones, the amount of sunshine, and the surface and pitch of the terrain — as well as support for the local eco-nomy. “We chose the solar panels and the compa-nies involved in building the farm according to their proximity in order to create jobs locally, and to minimize the carbon

impact,” said Mr. Florent Coche, Operations

Assistant at CNR. “100% French companies were a determining factor in

our choice of suppliers,” he confirmed.

The project

INEO MPLR Agence Industrie, a firm specia-lizing in electricity, auto-mation, supervision, and IT, was selected following a government tender for the Bollène solar farm. As a systems integrator that installs photovoltaic solu-tions and builds wind farm infrastructure, the compa-ny creates comprehen-sive solutions spanning site design, construction, and maintenance. It is a key player in developing renewable energy.

INEO chose Panorama E², the SCADA solution from Codra, to manage the technical equipment on the Bollène solar farm. The integrator has extensive experience with the

Panorama products, and signed a Panorama Certified Integrator contract (CIP) with Codra.

Its trust in Panorama is based on technical, fi-nancial, and human fac-tors.

Supervision

The Panorama E² SCADA solution meets all the operator’s technical re-quirements.

Data acquisition. CNR collects data from field equipment such as :

• measurement equip-ment that compares the energy generated vs. the energy consu-med,

• DC to AC converters, • transformers that

increase the voltage from 270 to 20,000 volts for EDF,

• analog/digital inputs that indicate lumino-sity and the tempera-ture above and below the panels,

• etc…

Human-Machine Interface.CNR uses custom views created from vector-based graphical objects to display information on light intensity, energy, and the power generated on

The Bollène solar farm has an installed capacity of 4,05MWp and covers 20 acres.

From industrial SCADA to a global information system

SUCCESS STORY

the farm per transformer unit and delivery unit across the entire site.

Remote control. Users can remotely control the electric cur-rent, the opening of cells at each unit, outdoor lighting, forced ventilation exhaust fans, triggering of circuit breakers, etc.

The remote connection uses RDS mode with three simultaneous access points. “We can manage the Southern farm from Bollène, or INEO can di-rectly control the applica-tion from Toulouse,” says Florent Coche of CNR.

Alarm and event management. Built-in Panorama E² func-tions alert SCADA users and system administra-tors about alarms and system malfunctions. The function for sen-ding and receiving SMS text messages used in conjunction with sche-dules warns mobile ope-rators according to their availability. Four CNR em-ployees are on-call in turn to manage the Southern farm.

Archiving. Panorama stores the data acquired from the site relating to production,

maintenance, schedules, etc.

This information is expor-ted to an SQL Server da-tabase. CNR centralizes and analyzes the produc-tion of the various farms. “The determining factor in choosing Panorama E² was its ease of use,” said Christophe Cammas, Development Engineer at INEO MPLR Agence Industrie.

“We can easily export data to SQL Server data-bases—a crucial require-ment for CNR. Furthermore, Panorama E² is easy to learn; the online help sys-tem is very well done, and specific functions are well documented.”

Return on investment

The Bollène solar farm project required 700 hours of work, including 400 hours for the design and development phase and 300 hours for com-missioning. “We really appreciated the smooth access to Codra’s techni-cal support — located in France — as well as their fast response times,” said Christophe Cammas of INEO. “Their availability

and support were vital for the successful comple-tion of the CNR project,” he added.

The solar farm project at Beaucaire in the Gard region was able to bene-fit from the experience of the Bollène farm. CNR can re-use all or part of the application and adapt it to the new site’s constraints.

Panorama mimic :Night lighting control

KEY F IGURES

• Investment : €12m including €6m for solar panels,

• • Installed capacity : 4,05 MWp,

• Annual production : 5,200,000 kWh (annual power consump-tion for 1,500 homes, excluding heating),

• Amount of sunshine : estimated at 1,700 kWh/sq. meter,

• Site surface area : 20 acres,

• Equipment : 17,600 solar panels,

• Communications : 1.2 km fibre optic loop,

• Panorama : 10,000 external variables, 50 Boolean variables per workstation,

• Sales price : 328 euros / MWh.

Hydroelectric power plant at Donzère-Mondragon. Centre for renewable energy : hydroelectric, solar and wind.

From industrial SCADA to a global information system

SUCCESS STORY

Panorama E²’s object-oriented technology simplifies the re-use of components as well as maintenance. “We were able to cut our develop-ment time in half, which has significantly reduced costs,” said Christophe Cammas.

Panorama on the horizon

CNR plans to generate an additional 35MW in 2013, and has submitted buil-ding permits in order to boost production to over 100MW by 2016.In response to a govern-ment tender, CNR has sub-mitted eight projects for various regions in France such as the Ardèche, the Hautes-Alpes, and the Gard, in order to continue the development of its so-lar business based on its Rhone river model.

The company is also considering development opportunities abroad.

CNR

The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône was founded in 1933, and in 1934 the French government granted it a concession in order to develop and operate France’s largest river for multiple purposes: energy production, navigation, irrigation, and other agricultural uses.

CNR is France’s leading producer of 100% renewable energy and the country’s second-leading producer of electricity. The company has an extensive program for diversifying its sources for producing renewable energy, which will boost its growth. This policy is in line with the guidelines of the French Grenelle Environment Forum. CNR has set ambitious goals for developing its assets (increasing its production capacity by 2000 MW in 2015), notably for hydrolic, wind, and solar energy.

Thanks to its experience in the Rhone, the company also offers river and hydro-electric engineering both in France and abroad.

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