SCADA International empowers the renewable energy sector through unparalleled SCADA expertise. Their highly skilled specialists support the full SCADA value chain and strive to act as the trusted partner from design, SCADA hardware production, software development, network design, and solution installation to surveillance and maintenance.
Their intelligent software solutions make reliable data from various sources available in real-time to customers worldwide. The aim is to reduce complexity and provide customers with solutions that optimize performance and competitiveness.
Headquartered in Denmark, SCADA International employs more than 120 people worldwide. Besides Denmark, the company is located in Germany, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the USA.
Interview with Jan Lindholt Nielsen, Technical Director & Chief SCADA Specialist | Founder and Board Member of SCADA International
Easy engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Jan Lindholt Nielsen: SCADA International operates in three main areas: software development and service, hardware and installation, and consulting. As stated above, we cover the complete SCADA value chain within renewables, delivering solutions from initial design phases to production, installation, commissioning, surveillance, service, and maintenance.
SCADA is short for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition and is a system used for controlling, monitoring, and analyzing industrial devices and processes. Our SCADA solutions are specialized in monitoring and controlling renewable assets such as wind turbines and solar PV parks. Our expertise lies in collecting data from various sources and transforming it into valuable data for plant performance optimization, maintenance, analysis, and reporting.
With more than 6000 SCADA solutions installed across 29 different countries worldwide, we have vast experience in monitoring, analysis, and control.
The OneView® SCADA is our future-proofed SCADA software that empowers the renewable energy sector. The system lets asset owners monitor and control all their renewable assets – e.g., wind turbines or solar PV modules – in one view.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
J.L.N: At SCADA International, we say that innovation is our backbone. Throughout the years, we have built and developed numerous intelligent solutions rooted in the industry’s needs and development.
Currently, our focus is to optimize our SCADA and control solutions with new features and updates so they fit the needs and desires of the exciting future that lies ahead.
With the many ambitious green goals and steep increase of new renewable installations, control and regulation will play an even more vital role. Our OneView® Hybrid Control Unit is designed to unify and control the power output from various units, e.g., different wind turbine types and brands, solar PV parks, batteries, and Power-to-X plants.
We are involved in many projects with mixed sources, and we continue to update and adapt the algorithms used in the OneView® Hybrid Control Unit so it matches our customers’ wishes and requirements.
At the beginning of the year, we launched a new control unit dedicated to smaller solar PV parks of 1-5 MW. The new solution is called the OneView® Solar Park Controller, which has already been issued for over 20 projects.
At the moment, we are also working on a new ETRM system for the Danish power trading company, Energi Danmark.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
J.L.N: We offer a wide range of software and hardware solutions within the renewable industry, where every solution or product is related to SCADA.
Our OneView® family covers a data gateway system, a park SCADA and portfolio SCADA system, and four different control units. What is unique about these solutions is that they are all connected and straightforward to integrate with each other or other systems.
We also specialize in the service and support of SCADA systems as well as consulting in SCADA design and configuration.
At the end of the day, our expertise lies within the field of SCADA and renewables, and many customers choose us based on the unique competencies and knowledge our SCADA experts hold.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
J.L.N: The renewable industry is evolving at an accelerating speed. As we see it, the renewable landscape of the future will look very different from today. Based on the many new green goals and initiatives – both from big players in the energy sector and governments – we predict that the energy system will be much more integrated, where renewables will be connected to the heating or Power-to-X systems and vice versa.
With integrated systems, data and automation, as well as control and regulation, become the glue that makes it all work together. This is where our expertise lies, so we are very curious about where the future might bring us.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
J.L.N: With the steep rise in renewables connected to the grid, new challenges concerning grid saturation, energy efficiency, and increased complexity occurs, which means that the demand for flexibility in the system becomes a key factor.
One of the more significant trends is energy storage, as reserving energy can eliminate grid capacity and power utilization challenges.
Our OneView® Hybrid Control Unit can interface to and control battery energy storage systems (BESS) and Power-to-X systems. Our task for the years to come will be to optimize the control solution so it fits even more setups and new demands.
