Industrial Automation Solution was approached by Novel Therm to build the controls for their geothermal heat engine. Novel Therm is an innovator in the geothermal green energy arena. They were interested in both controlling the Stirling heat engine and being able to log extensive amounts of data.
PLC Controls
We selected the iQ-R PLC by Mitsubishi Electric to control and gather data from the Stirling heat engine. The iQ-R series is a rack bases PLC and has a variety of different modules and redundant PLC capabilities. For collecting valuable data points in the micro second scan rate the iQ-R PLC provided the necessary scan time and data base capability to store the data on a SD card or log the sensor data to a data base on a PC that is on the same network. Expansion was also a concern as the development of the project moves to the next phase so we developed the PLC code in a modular fashion.
HMI Visualization
For visualization, we used the GT2108 HMI from Mitsubishi Electric. This gave us the graphical interface locally at the unit and remote viewing/control from anywhere with an internet connection.
