As renewable energy supplied to electrical grids continues to grow, the need for more scalable options to control these additional sources of energy. In a 2019 Ovation Users’ Group conference presentation on the Ovation Compact Controller (OCC), Emerson’s Tom Snowdon shared an update on the OCC, the use of 3rd party I/O and engineering tool options.
Tom opened defining a standalone as one controller, connected I/O and potentially 3rd party I/O. It can be configured with the regular Ovation configuration tools. Tom explained that a standalone remote station to configure. A standalone engineering tool will be available that can be used which can run on a laptop. The standalone engineering tool is identical to the existing Ovation engineering tools.
There will be two phases of standalone engineering tools (SAET) that will become available. The first will support one controller configuration at a time. Using a virtual controller on the computer with the SAET enables tie-back testing for commissioning. Controllers will not communicate with each other and you can disconnect the SAET computer from the controller, and the controller will continue to run.
The second phase of SAET will be that any computer with SAET 2 can be used with any controller configured with SAET 2 without limitations. Controllers will not be able to communicate using Ovation broadcasts or Ovation over WAN. The controller will be able to be “adopted” into an Ovation system as a drop or as a droplet.
OCC supports standard Ovation I/O, Specialty Ovation I/O, such as Machinery Health and Turbine I/O, and third-party devices such as Ethernet I/O, digital bus I/O, and devices with embedded controllers.
Third party I/O can be used when a smaller footprint than offered by Ovation I/O is needed or some functionality not supported by Ovation I/O is required. Connecting to third party I/O is just a matter of configuring the datalink. The field LAN router (FLR) between smart devices and the Ovation controller helps protect the controller and the Ovation network from malware. And, connecting to existing PLC I/O typically requires purchase and installation of an interface module at the I/O. Connecting to existing PLC I/O typically requires purchase and installation of an interface module at the I/O.
Visit the Ovation Compact Controller (OCC) section on Emerson.com for more on the capabilities and functionality of this controller.
