Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Energy Educators Meet to Learn SCADA Systems


Jan 10, 2020
Twenty eight educators representing 17 U.S. states took time out of their winter break to participate in the CREATE Supervisory Controls and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Workshop delivered by Indian River State College.  The workshop featured a day of programming hosted by NextEra Energy Resources, the world's largest generator of renewable energy.  CREATE faculty met with NextEra power generation engineers and subject matter experts to learn about SCADA technology.  The day included a tour of the Renewable Operations Control Center (ROCC), which serves as the monitoring and operations center of NextEra Energy Resource's wind, photovoltaic solar, and battery energy storage fleet.  Participants learned about ROCC Operations processes including plant Start-Up/Shutdown, Curtailment, Daily Work Management, Troubleshooting and Outage restoration, and Energy Market Communications.  The workshop participants also contributed to a draft SCADA job task analysis to identify key knowledge and skills necessary for the energy workforce.  A curriculum scoping activity also laid the groundwork for forthcoming SCADA curriculum development that will be completed in spring 2020.  The group also received the first glimpse of the new Open Source SCADA platform being developed by experts from Indian River and NextEra.  The Open Source platform will be distributed in the year ahead for free access by community colleges participating in the project.