Case Analysis on Remote Monitoring System for Wind Farms: Achieving 99.99% Online Rate with 5G LTE Router
Driven by the "dual carbon" goals, China's installed wind power capacity has surpassed 400 million kilowatts. However, the operational and maintenance (O&M) challenges in remote wind farms have become a bottleneck for industry development. A leading wind power enterprise once faced three core pain points:
Frequent network interruptions: A northwest wind farm experienced a fiber optic break, causing 32 wind turbines to lose connection. A single fault repair took 72 hours, resulting in direct losses exceeding RMB 2 million.
Delayed data transmission: The bandwidth of traditional 4G networks was insufficient, leading to a 15-second delay in transmitting wind turbine vibration data, which prevented real-time fault diagnosis.
High O&M costs: Manual inspections required traversing harsh environments such as deserts and plateaus, with a single inspection costing over RMB 5,000. Annual O&M expenditures accounted for 18% of revenue.
These pain points essentially represent a triangular conflict between network reliability, data real-time performance, and O&M cost-effectiveness. The key to resolving this conflict lies in constructing an industrial IoT network that is "always connected, intelligent, efficient, and cost-controllable."
In a practical application at an offshore wind farm, the 5G LTE router USR-G816 improved equipment online rates to 99.99% and reduced annual O&M costs by 42% through three technological innovations:
USR-G816 supports intelligent backup across four links: 5G, 4G, wired, and WiFi. Its working principles are as follows:
Seamless primary-backup link switching: When the 5G primary link signal strength drops below -105 dBm, the system automatically switches to the 4G backup network with a switching delay of less than 50 ms.
Dual-SIM card redundancy design: Supports simultaneous online operation of SIM cards from two carriers. When the primary carrier's base station fails, the backup card automatically takes over, with a measured network recovery time of less than 3 seconds.
Wired network priority strategy: In fixed locations such as wind farm booster stations, fiber optic networks are prioritized. When the fiber optic connection is interrupted, the system automatically switches to a wireless backup.
Practical case: During a typhoon at an offshore wind farm, the fiber optic communication was interrupted. USR-G816 continued to transmit wind turbine vibration data through 5G+4G dual-link backup, providing critical support for fault warnings and preventing a major equipment damage incident.
USR-G816 is equipped with a 5G SA/NSA dual-mode module, achieving a measured downlink speed of 700 Mbps and an uplink speed of 150 Mbps. Its data transmission optimization strategies include:
Intelligent protocol conversion: Built-in Modbus/MQTT protocol conversion engine converts wind turbine PLC data directly into a JSON format recognizable by the cloud, reducing data parsing delays.
Edge data filtering: Deploys data cleaning rules at the router end to automatically eliminate invalid data and only upload key parameters (such as vibration frequency and temperature thresholds), reducing data transmission volume by 60%.
QoS traffic scheduling: Allocates dedicated bandwidth channels for emergency alarm data to ensure priority transmission of fault information, with a measured key data transmission delay of less than 100 ms.
Data comparison: Under traditional 4G networks, a single wind turbine transmitted 2 GB of data per day. After adopting USR-G816, this volume was reduced to 800 MB, while data integrity improved from 82% to 99.9%.
USR-G816 achieves stable operation in harsh wind farm environments through the following designs:
Environmental adaptability: Operating temperature range of -35°C to 75°C, IP30 protection rating, and resistance to salt spray, dust, and electromagnetic interference (passing IEC 61000-4-6 standard tests).
Hardware redundancy mechanism: Built-in dual watchdog chips automatically restart the main processor in case of a crash, with an MTBF (mean time between failures) exceeding 100,000 hours.
Power protection: Supports DC 9-36V wide voltage input with reverse polarity protection, overvoltage protection, and overcurrent protection, ensuring stable operation during power grid fluctuations.
Field test: At a plateau wind farm (elevation 4,500 meters, temperature -30°C), USR-G816 operated continuously for 18 months without failure, while similar products experienced three hardware failures within three months.
USR-G816 is not an isolated device but serves as the "nerve center" of the wind farm remote monitoring system. Its system architecture is divided into three layers:
Sensor network: Deploys vibration sensors, temperature sensors, anemometers, etc., to collect wind turbine operational data.
Edge computing node: USR-G816, with a built-in Linux system, runs lightweight AI algorithms for data preprocessing and anomaly detection.
5G private network: Allocates an independent 5G slice for the wind farm to ensure low-latency transmission of critical data.
VPN encrypted tunnel: Establishes a secure channel through IPSec VPN to prevent data leakage.
Ursalink Cloud Platform: Enables centralized device management, supporting remote configuration, firmware upgrades, and fault diagnosis.
Fault prediction system: Trains an LSTM neural network model based on historical data to predict gearbox failures 72 hours in advance.
O&M scheduling platform: Dynamically adjusts inspection routes based on wind turbine health status to reduce ineffective inspections.
Energy efficiency analysis module: Optimizes wind turbine yaw angles through big data analysis to improve power generation efficiency by 3%-5%.
Effectiveness verification: After deploying this system at a wind farm, equipment failure rates decreased by 60%, O&M personnel were reduced by 50%, and annual power generation increased by 2.1%.
The implementation of USR-G816 brings three core values to customers:
Reduced manual inspections: Remote monitoring replaces 80% of on-site inspections, saving over RMB 2 million in annual labor costs per wind farm.
Lower spare parts inventory: Predictive maintenance shifts spare part replacements from "post-failure repair" to "planned replacement," reducing inventory costs by 35%.
Shorter downtime: Fault warning accuracy reaches 92%, and the mean time to repair (MTTR) is reduced from 8 hours to 1.5 hours.
Network availability: Four-link backup reduces network interruption frequency from four times per month to 0.03 times.
Data integrity: Edge computing + 5G transmission ensures a data loss rate of less than 0.01%, meeting IEC 61400-25 standards.
System compatibility: Supports mainstream industrial protocols such as Modbus, OPC UA, and IEC 61850, seamlessly integrating with existing SCADA systems.
Improved power generation efficiency: Optimizing wind turbine control strategies increases annual power generation by approximately 50,000 kWh per turbine.
Reduced carbon emissions: Based on CO2 emissions reduction of 0.8 kg per kWh, a single wind farm reduces emissions by over 4,000 tons annually.
Extended equipment lifespan: Predictive maintenance extends the lifespan of key components such as gearboxes and generators by 2-3 years.
Temperature range: Choose devices with a wide temperature range of -40°C to 85°C to adapt to extreme environments such as plateaus and deserts.
Protection rating: IP65 or higher provides dust and water resistance, suitable for offshore wind farms.
Electromagnetic compatibility: Pass IEC 61000-4-6 tests to resist interference from devices such as frequency converters and transformers.
5G frequency band: Support for the 700 MHz golden frequency band with strong penetration, suitable for mountainous wind farms.
Bandwidth requirements: A single wind turbine generates approximately 1 GB of data per day, requiring an uplink bandwidth of at least 100 Mbps.
Latency requirements: Transmission delay for critical control commands must be less than 200 ms.
Redundancy mechanisms: Dual-SIM card, dual power supply, and dual watchdog designs.
Fault recovery: Support for automatic reconnection after network interruptions and data breakpoint resumption.
Maintenance convenience: Support for remote firmware upgrades, log exports, and configuration backups.
Protocol support: Modbus TCP/RTU, MQTT, OPC UA, and IEC 61850.
Platform integration: Compatibility with mainstream IoT platforms such as Ursalink Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Huawei Cloud.
Custom development: Provide SDK development kits to support customized function development.
Recommended Product: USR-G816 5G LTE Router
Core advantages: 5G universal compatibility + four-link backup + edge computing + industrial-grade reliability.
Typical configuration: Dual-SIM card slots, 3 LAN + 1 WAN ports, RS232/485 serial ports, and GNSS positioning.
Applicable scenarios: Onshore/offshore wind farms, photovoltaic power stations, smart grids, and oil and gas pipeline monitoring.
At a critical stage where the wind power industry is shifting from "scale expansion" to "quality and efficiency," USR-G816 has assisted over 300 wind farms worldwide in achieving intelligent upgrades. By acting now, you will receive:
Free consultation: Submit a request form to receive a customized solution within 2 hours.
Pilot deployment: Provide one sample unit for a 30-day free trial to verify technical feasibility.
Bulk purchase discounts: Offer tiered discounts based on procurement volume, with a maximum reduction of 30%.
Click the button now to make USR-G816 the "digital nerve center" of your wind farm's digital transformation!
