The only company in the World with an in-house Energy Test & Development center.
Yes, we did it! CoNet is the First Siemens partner worldwide to develop a test box enabling us to simulate any high-voltage environment – be it a wind farm, a network or an entire industrial zone. This High-voltage Safety Simulator allows for the real life testing of safety systems through influx. The very advanced CoNet Test- & Development Center will guide high voltage automation into a completely new – and above all safer – era, worldwide.
When it comes to technical Smart Grid and Energy solutions, Siemens is the absolute leader in the field. In turn, for the past twenty years we have been the go to Siemens specialist in the domain of Process and Factory Automation. And now we have added Energy to our competences. Siemens has specifically developed Siprotec for this market. These devices protect, automate, measure and control high and medium-voltage networks. The safety tests were conducted using the Omicron program. However, until today the automated high-voltage networks were programmed and tested on-site, with all the safety risks that this entailed. On top of that, not many people are certified for this sort of on-site work.
So naturally at CoNet we thought: “If we’re engineering and configuring high-voltage safeties… how can we go about testing them safely? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could simulate high-voltage environments? One would need a device allowing for the physical testing, but without the danger to people and the risk of disabling (part of) the high-voltage field.” It appeared that the advanced hardware such as we had imagined it, did not exist. But it takes a lot more to discourage the people at CoNet: if something does not exist, we’ll just create it ourselves.
Last September the Test & Development Box was delivered at our Zaandam facility. It was developed by CoNet using hardware from Siemens. Thanks to this Box we are now able to reverse engineer virtually any high-voltage environment. Be it a wind farm, a network or an entire plant. The Box allows us to configure, program and test. Using the Box we simulate an existing situation. We can then install and program safety software. When this is done we can further develop and test safety to the fullest. The High-voltage Safety Simulator allows for the testing of primary safety features. Thus our principals can be certain that safeties – in case of wrong circuits, malfunctions or dangerous situations – are guaranteed to function.
On top of this new Test & Development center we have matching software and specialists at our and your disposal. Our Energy engineers are the best in their field and have all successfully completed the Siemens Energy Technique training. They have, for instance, completed the Siemens Installation Responsibility/High-voltage Responsibility (IV/WV) courses. For the sake of completeness: the IV is concerned with the installation’s operational management and the WV safeguards the safety for circuits and work on the installation.
Would you like to learn more about our expertise in the fields of Energy and Smart Grid? Or would you like to know what our Test & Development Box can do for you? Feel free to contact us.