VIDIHIP - A Web Service based Integration Platform for Power Plant Control Systems

European energy supply companies typically run a conglomerate of different, geographically distributed power plants. Unfortunately, the corresponding power plant control systems are based on proprietary technology and an integration of these control systems is a very complex task. We thus conducted a project to build an integration platform for power plant control systems that is based on open standards and technologies. In this paper, we describe the Vienna District Heating Integration Platform (VIDIHIP). VIDIHIP is based on Web service technology and allows for the integration of arbitrary (heterogeneous) power plant control systems. It provides a consistent interface to access different decentralized control systems and each standard Web browser can be used as a control front-end for VIDIHIP.