One day of last September, a row of large container trucks, loaded with more than 100 wind turbine inverters, filed out of Zhejiang HITE Renewable Energy’s gate, heading for the destination-Xinjiang.

 

This order was by no means big, but it’s the most special one among a considerable number of orders last year.

 

The reason lied in the fact that a new component, the palm-sized smart card, was added in the control system of each wind turbine inverter.

 

"It means a 'personal health consultant' to each machine, and an extremely responsible 'intelligent staff' to the company." Seeing this batch of special products off, Ji Jianqiang, the deputy general manager of R&D Department of Zhejiang HITE Renewable Energy, seems expectant and excited.

 

What on earth is special about this smart card with dual function?

 

They made it in advance while their peers are still thinking about it

 

The last decade saw a hot trend of domestication of wind power installation and scale expansion of wind power generation in China. HITE Renewable Energy started 7 years ago, and is one of the older wind power enterprises in China.

 

HITE Renewable Energy products stretched over most regions of the country during the past 7 years, of which Chen Chaofeng, the deputy general manager of HITE Renewable Energy Co., Ltd., is directly aware.

 

On a map of China, more than a hundred colorful pushpins were thumbtacked on provinces and regions from Northeastern China to Hainan Island and from Xinjiang to Yunnan. "Our products are mainly sold in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Yunnan and etc." Chen Zhaofeng was rather proud to introduce that HITE Renewable Energy’s market share was among the top three in China.

 

The first simulation test platform, the first enterprise granted low voltage ride through test certificate by China Electric Power Research Institute, the first domestic enterprise awarded 1.5 MW low voltage ride through (LVRT) converter test certificate by German MOE authentication company…... attitude and efforts of HITE Renewable Energy to excellence are visible from R&D, testing to manufacturing.

 

Ideas will blossom finally once conceived. HITE Renewable Energy embarked on the research work since early 2014, and the first batch of products realizing this idea were finally delivered by HITE Renewable Energy last September.

 

Winder turbines under monitoring a thousand miles away

 

Business opportunities are everywhere, but transient.

 

Last May, the State Council officially issued the "Made in China 2025", a strong impetus to the manufacturing industry undoubtedly. Promoting the digitization, networking and intelligentization of manufacturing has been put on the agenda. Whether encouraged by the policy or led by “Internet Plus" fervor, the initial conception of HITE Renewable Energy enabled caught up with the upsurge transforming from "Made in China" to "Made with Wisdom" right in time.

 

After the first batch of new products came off the assembly line, the assembly plants of HITE Renewable Energy are still busy. Workers responsible for installing and debugging wind turbine converter control system have one more task to embed a palm-sized network communication adapter in control system of each wind turbine inverter.

 

An assembled wind turbine inverter has the similar shape of a quarto wardrobe. Opening one of the doors, you can see that the motherboard bearing the whole control system is clear at a glance and that the network communication adapter is fixed at one corner of the motherboard.

 

This network communication adapter is referred to as "smart card". The function and role it plays is proportionate to the network adapter embedded in the computer mainframe box.

 

Nowadays, the civil use of network adapter is common. But its industrial use is subject to tight restrictions on access requirement.

 

“Due to the particularity of the place where a wind turbine works, the reliability and continuity of the whole control system are strictly required." As far as Ji Jianqiang is concerned, the network adapter embedded in wind turbine inverter is required to withstand not only high temperatures, but also the extremely cold weather.

 

This network adapter helps to achieve a bi-directional connection between human and machines. The biggest benefit is to put the whole wind turbine under fine management. “Previously, our staff can't carry out regular inspections on wind turbine after it is transported to the site for formal operation, except knowing whether it is in normal operation or not.

 

The Internet and Internet of Things link people, products and data. The “personal health consultant” to wind turbine is also the most responsible "intelligent staff" of the enterprise.

 

Imagine this: every day, data from thousands of wind turbines dotted in the vast country is collected and integrated. How operation and problems vary under the circumstances of different areas, altitudes and temperatures…... these results out of big data analytics can provide design basis and reference for the enterprise to develop and optimize the next generation of products. It is the next step HITE Renewable Energy will take to set up a monitoring center within the enterprise to realize real time and all-weather monitoring of all products.