Page 250 - PLC Automation

248 MAIN CATALOG PLC AUTOMATION

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Application descriptions

Safer, greener and more productive

with AC500-S safety PLC

PLCs with in-built functional safety and fail-safe condition monitoring
are the unsung heroes of many renewable installations like wind
turbines, electric battery-operated AGVs and hydrogen tank stations.

A safety PLC plays an important role Renewable applications often require complex
in renewable energy applications safety calculations driven by the need to process
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Using programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to vast amounts of information to safely supervise
control wind turbines or direct solar arrays has the permissible range for temperature, pressure,
been a common solution for many years. What is charge rate, vibration level or position and speed
not yet fully appreciated is the failsafe condition tracking in real-time. Simultaneously, there is a
monitoring and advanced functional safety capa- need to safely monitor these complex renewable
bilities built within today’s PLCs and how they can processes and/or machine characteristics. Ideally
be applied to renewable applications. Not every- placed for this are safety PLCs, with support for
one has grasped the importance that functional trigonometric functions, floating-point calcula-
safety plays in renewable energy applications and tions, PROFINET/PROFIsafe communication and
the influential role that a safety PLC can play. structured text (ST) for safety programming.