Study of LANs access technologies in wind power system

Due to the energy challenges in the world, new types of generation technologies, such as renewable energy based generators, attract great attention and are being quickly developed, which results in the dramatic developments and changes in modern power systems, the communication technologies play a increasingly important role in guaranteeing the power system´s stability, reliability, and security. In this paper the necessity of communication technologies employed in wind power system are introduced. According the International Standards Organization (ISO) reference 7-layered model, the communication techniques are addressed individually for each layer. Because of the particularity of the offshore wind farm, the communication network of the offshore wind farm may be treated as a LAN. Therefore the popular LANs access techniques, including Ethernet, at the Data Link Layer of the ISO seven-layers in wind power environment are explained and discussed. Furthermore the simulation of application of Ethernet in an offshore wind farm communication network by a software, OPNET, is elaborated. With the investigation of the communication technologies in this paper, the offshore wind farm SCADA system can be further modernized.