With increasing energy consumption and the large-scale expansion of renewable energy, the Swedish power grid has become increasingly unstable. Furthermore, it faces specific regional challenges, as overhead cables frequently traverse kilometers of dense forest and uneven terrain. Power outages disrupt the power supply to countless homes and businesses, causing significant economic losses and posing a major challenge to power companies. To mitigate power fluctuations and outages, the Swedish company dLaboratory Sweden AB has developed a technology that can detect and report grid collapses at an early stage, preventing grid failures. Beckhoff's PC-based control platform, integrating seamless measurement technology, plays a crucial role in this process.
Power outages are typically caused by interference from various unforeseen factors. Aging transmission lines can introduce further problems; additionally, overhead cables traversing forests are susceptible to vegetation interference. For example, falling trees or excessively tall trees can cause short circuits and cable grounding, leading to grid collapse. The smart grid system developed by dLaboratory consists of dBox, a measurement system equipped with an internet connection, and dAnalysis, analysis software that collects and automatically analyzes measured grid collapse data. dBox records every deviation in the grid and analyzes the data in the cloud. Power suppliers receive regular grid status updates via email, enabling companies to quickly identify errors and initiate remote preventative maintenance. This improves the reliability and quality of power supply.
“Users can modify the web interface settings in the analysis device to automatically analyze individual groups of measurements,” said Magnus Akke, founder of dLaboratory. Analysis results can be searched in a database and then examined to determine what necessary actions need to be taken. These are presented either as a list containing details of protective measures or as a scalable timeline for individual entries.
dLaboratory Sweden AB, founded in 2010 by Magnus Akke , Frederik Akke , and Lars Wollung (from left to right), developed a technology that can detect and report grid collapses at an early stage to prevent grid failures.
The measurement system is controlled by a Beckhoff CX2040 embedded controller equipped with Beckhoff TwinCAT 3 automation software, which directly connects to an EtherCAT terminal block for measuring voltage, current, and signal transmission. A Beckhoff XFC EL3702 terminal block with oversampling capability handles data acquisition. The embedded controller processes and stores the data and communicates with the cloud.
