2. energy sources and will have a major role in the creation of
a competitive electricity market.
The project is managed by a consortium of SES ASTRA,
Digitaria - the ASTRA2Connect service distributor in
Italy, and Calzavara - a system integrator specializing in
telecommunications, with an extensive experience in
serving the renewable and alternative energy sectors.
This project is unique for the Italian energy industry.
GSE’s choice to use the ASTRA2Connect platform
introduces an innovative system for its data collection
processes, a system which is flexible, expandable and has
national coverage. As a consequence it can reach every
renewable energy plant in Italy. The satellite platform also
has the important advantage that it can transmit data at
“moderate costs,” comparable with those of a traditional
ADSL line.
The transfer of data is based on an IT infrastructure and
a software platform developed ad hoc and optimized
for transmission via satellite. The uniformity of the
ASTRA2Connect transmission platform, coverage across
the all of Italy and the functionality of the management
software, guarantee unprecedented scalability and
implementation speeds.
In February 2010, SES ASTRA announced an agreement
with Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE) to supply a
network of 5,000 ASTRA2Connect terminals in Italy, for
telemetric and video surveillance applications in the energy
market. This network is based on a dedicated bidirectional
service via satellite.
GSE fosters sustainable energy development by providing
economic support to renewable electricity generation
and taking actions to raise awareness of environmentally-
efficient energy use. The sole shareholder of GSE is the
Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance, giving guidance
for the activity of GSE in consultation with the Ministry of
Economic Development.
GSE collects and forecasts electricity production from
renewable energy sources. In order to that, the company
has to acquire, monitor and process various kinds of data
which is distributed throughout its network. For that
reason, a reliable broadband infrastructure is needed.
SES ASTRA provides GSE with its ASTRA2Connect
technology to access broadband via satellite. This allows to
increase the predictability of energy derived from multiple
renewable sources.
With this contract, ASTRA2Connect has become one
of the most important satellite broadband networks of
the European energy market, and the service leader for
satellite-based broadband in Italy. SES ASTRA is also
contributing to the development of a European policy to
support sustainable energies which utilize renewable
Executive overview
ASTRA2Connect satellite broadband
for energy monitoring
3. As of 2007, the Italian Authority for Gas and Electricity,
an independent governmental body founded in 1995 with
mandate to regulate and control the gas and electricity sector,
has assigned Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE) with the
task of collecting the electricity and improving provisions for
emissions from the renewable energy plants.
GSE must collect the electricity generated by these plants
and allocate it into electricity market. GSE also manages the
collection and allocation to the stock market of electricity
produced by plants regulated by provision CIP6 of 1992*.
From 2008, GSE has introduced several procedures to
forecast the electricity emissions produced by CIP6 wind
farms. In addition, the company implemented the procedures
necessary for the improvement of the provisions from
photovoltaic plants and eventually in 2009 the similar rules
has been established for the hydroelectric and water plants.
ASTRA2Connect satellite
broadband – the selected
solution
In order to fulfill all the requirements requested by the
Authority for Gas and Electricity, GSE has decided to
implement the ASTRA2Connect satellite broadband solution
to allow the acquisition of a range of the data parameters such
as instantaneous power produced by individual generators,
intensity and direction of wind, solar radiation etc. The
collected data is then integrated with the forecasting system.
The scope of the project covers around 5,000 plants powered
by different renewable energy sources. Of these, around 500
are plants with a production capacity equal or above 10 MW.
They produce 90% of the overall power. These are the first
plants where the satellite terminals are installed.
“This project is unique in the Italian
energy landscape. Using a satellite
platform for data collection processes,
we have introduced an innovative,
flexible, and scalable system which also
covers the entire Italian territory.
A further advantage are the low costs,
compared to traditional ADSL networks.”
(Nando Pasquali, CEO GSE)
GSE Background
*CIP6” is a resolution adopted April 29, 1992by the “Comitato Interministeriale
Prezzi” (Interministerial Committee on Prices - CIP) which introduced fixed
price incentive for electricity produced from plants using Renewable Energy
Sources (RES). Under this resolution, GSE purchases the electricity generated
by plants using RES and other sources meeting the definition and trades it in
the market. Source: http://www.gse.it/Documents/GSEactivities.pdf
4. The delivered solution comprises the supply, installation,
management and maintenance of all the elements
necessary for the implementation of a satellite metering
system that remotely reads the meters installed at the
plants. The system works independently from terrestrial-
type telecommunications services, whether wired or
wireless, guaranteeing the following benefits:
> Optimization of cost/benefit ratios;
> High flexibility in terms of architecture;
> High scalability (addition of plants, new sites, new types
of services, increasing existing capacity);
> Extreme reliability (thanks to the redundancy of the
transmission infrastructure and calculation at the
teleport);
> Complete outsourcing of data transfer service
> Very flexible qualification of service level;
The solution comprises:
> the implementation of a system for the data
acquisition and distribution using the ASTRA2Connect
bidirectional satellite broadband access with coverage
throughout Italy,
> the development of a hardware/software platform
which collects data recorded in the data-loggers
or SCADA devices already located at the plants, for
subsequent transfer via the satellite network to one
or more GSE locations.
The monitored data parameters
include i.e.:
> Instantaneous active power (reactive and capacitive
if available) produced by each individual generator,
expressed in kW;
> Energy produced by each individual generator,
expressed in kWh;
> Primary source data based on the type of plant and
each measurement station:
- Channel output (in the case of hydroelectric plants)
in mc/s;
- Wind speed (in the case of wind farms) in m/s;
- Wind direction (in the case of wind farms)
in degrees (360);
- Air temperature (if available) in degrees centigrade;
Air humidity (if available) in percentages;
- Atmospheric pressure (if available) in hPa
(hectopascal);
- Solar radiation (in the case of photovoltaic plants)
in W/m2
.
The data is read at a frequency of once every ten
minutes (or six readings per hour),
“Our agreement with GSE is a significant
step for ASTRA2Connect in the Italian
market. The European energy market is
seeking a substantially increased share
of renewable energy sources, and we
are very proud to offer ASTRA2Connect
as a reliable and cost-efficient solution.”
(Norbert Willems, Managing Director ABBS)
ASTRA2Connect satellite broadband
for energy monitoring
5. The SCADA system (“Supervisory Control and
Data Acquisition”) typically indicates a distributed
information system for the electronic monitoring of
the physical system. It uses a geographically spread
telecommunications network (WAN) through which data
acquired from a control system is fed into the system
for monitoring and supervision. The implemented
ASTRA2Connect solution allows the system to be
accessed remotely by one or more control centres.
In particular, the geographical network is implemented via
bidirectional IP satellite connections, completely detached
from terrestrial connectivity. The satellite stations,
installed at the plants, are constantly connected with the
ASTRA2Connect central hub system. Through this system,
they are interconnected to the dedicated backbones and
accessed through a dedicated static IP address.
The general scheme for the infrastructure proposed is
illustrated below:
The technology “Digitaria has developed a key service
unrivalled in Europe. The data transfer
is based on an IT infrastructure and a
software platform which was developed
especially for satellite transmission and
guarantees a unique scalability and
implementation speed.”
(Federico Masier, CEO Digitaria)
6. The following diagram illustrates
the subsystems at the remote station:
The remote satellite station includes the following components:
> ASTRA2Connect satellite modem;
> Digitaria SCADA Gateway;
> IP camera
The small ASTRA2Connect modem uses state-of-
art DVB-S2 technology as well as DVB Multi-protocol
Encapsulation for the transmission channel and MF-TDMA
(Multi Frequency – Time Division Multiple Access) for the
return channels.
It is based on Newtec’s Sat3Play technology. Newtec is
the European market leader in Satellite Communications,
offering highly reliable products and solutions including
DVB-S2 modulators and modems.
The network functionalities of the ASTRA2Connect satellite IP
modem include:
> IP bridge to move traffic between Ethernet and air
interfaces.
> Proxy DHCP which provides a public IP address at the
network node
> DNS proxy for the resolution of logical names in physical IPs
> DNS caching for local maintenance of resolutions
> TCP acceleration for efficiency improvement in satellite
communications
> Pre-fetching of web page to increase static page access
speed on the Internet
> Support for the IP multicast protocol;
> Support for relocation without the need for reconfiguration
> Support allocation of a static public IP address.
The overall solution provides an infrastructure capable of
satisfying all GSE’s requirements and ready to support any
future developments. The scalability of the service enables
a fast increase in capacity by simple reconfiguration of the
equipment already installed, without having an impact on the
overall functionality of the service and without any need to
redesign the architectural features.
Virtualization methods also allow the solution to be scaled with
regards to its processing capacity, simply by adding further
servers to the areas proposed for the primary and secondary
site. The same applies to the persistence infrastructure based
on an Oracle cluster.
The advantage of the ASTRA2Connect satellite solution is that
its architecture is uniform from a transportation perspective.
Data collection servers can uniformly translate data from
different systems, implementing a level of abstraction from the
remote site to the site or sites under supervision.
The redundancy of all the hardware equipment and transport
network ensures the robustness and extreme reliability and
availability of the system as a whole.
Advantages of the ASTRA2Connect
technology
> High level of data security and reliability of network;
> Independence of the geographical distribution of the
sites;
> Homogeneity in terms of equipment and management;
> Connection always active (“always on”);
> Support for IP unicast and IP multicast protocols;
> Optimisation of band resources on the part of all the
users;
> Speed of installation;
> Flexibility of expansion in relation to:
- Type of applications supported;
- Number of sites connected.
IP Camera
SCADA
Gateway
RTU
Datalogger/
SCADA
ASTRA 2connect
Modem
LAN
ASTRA2Connect satellite broadband
for energy monitoring
7. Conclusions:
The project GSE started in Italy with the support of SES
ASTRA, Digitaria and Calzavara could become an excellent
model for all European countries. High transmission
reliability of the satellite is a key to guarantee the maximum
accuracy in the monitoring and data collection activities.
The transfer of data is based on an IT infrastructure and
on an ad-hoc software platform, optimized for satellite
transmission, guaranteeing data flow towards GSE.
The uniformity of the ASTRA2Connect transmission
platform – covering the entire national territory – together
with the management software capabilities allows an
unprecedented scalability and implementation speed.
The project team
The solution is delivered by the consortium formed of SES
ASTRA S.A., Digitaria Srl, and Calzavara S.p.A., which pool
together their respective skills to undertake the important and
complex project and ensure that all GSE’s demands are met.
SES ASTRA S.A. is responsible for:
> the supply, management and maintenance of the spatial
capacity and broadband platform (hub) required for the
implementation of the data acquisition and transmission
system;
> the monitoring and inspection services for the
geostationary satellites;
> the management of the central hub.
Digitaria S.r.l., is responsible for:
> providing webcams and satellite equipment for reception
and transmission;
> planning, development and installation of the Oracle
software platform;
> access to plant data and converting it into the format
accepted by GSE;
> first and second level help desk for GSE,
> providing an operative management service, as well as
systematic support for the system for acquisition of data
and implementation of SCADA gateways.
Calzavara S.p.A. is responsible for:
> the on-site equipment installation and maintenance
services.
“We are convinced that this project
will also be applied in many other
European countries. The solution we
have developed for GSE has set an
example for the entire industry.”
( Marco Calzavara, CEO Calzavara)
8. Talk to us.Call +352 710 725 545
ASTRA Broadband Services S.A.
Château de Betzdorf
L-6815, Luxembourg
astra2connect@ses–astra.com
www.ses–astra.com/astra2connect
