Bechtel and Hexicon Collaborate

California resident Dianoush Emami has 37 years’ experience in electrical engineering, specializing in electrical distribution and high voltage transmission engineering, working with large corporations such as Bechtel Power Corporation. At Bechtel, Dianoush Emami oversaw design and project management of various initiatives dealing with nuclear power, conventional, biofuel, and alternative energy sectors.

Bechtel serves clients across industries and sectors, including helping energy companies with their net-zero emissions mission. Sweden-based Hexicon is a wind farm producer that develops the technology that makes it possible to use wind farms with deepwater projects. In March 2021, Bechtel collaborated with Hexicon to develop floating wind farm technology that would generate power for deep-sea projects.

The project relies on Bechtel’s construction, engineering, and project financing expertise, which would go into designing the offshore platform. The team also plans on devising a strategy for bringing the deep-sea wind farm to market.

The two companies demonstrated this innovative offshore technology for large-scale floating projects off the coast of the UK. According to Bechtel, the project’s significance lies in the fact that the approach supports deployment in deep waters at a lower cost than other methods of power generation. Moreover, it would greatly assist industries that rely on shallow water platforms attached to the sea bed. For the UK, it could solidify the country as a world leader in offshore wind generation and place it on the path of reaching its goal of generating 40GW of offshore wind energy by 2030.

An Introduction to SCADA

A successful electrical engineer, Dianoush Emami graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Dianoush Emami has also performed a technical audit for the California Independent System Operator and reviewed the generation control of its Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA).

SCADA is a data acquisition, monitoring, and system control solution that is particularly helpful for large geographical areas. It combines data acquisition and telemetry. For data collection, measurements are collected by remote terminal units and further conveyed to the SCADA central host computer for remote access.

Due to its efficient data collection capability, SCADA is a significant tool in power system operation. It also provides a flexible range of capabilities that include distribution network automation, monitoring, coordinating, control, and operating distribution components.

SCADA is a capable solution for various industries (electric, energy, water, oil and gas, and more). Instead of requiring employees to manually inspect the plant, pipeline, or grid for errors, SCADA accomplishes the inspection in an automated approach through programmed scripts. SCADA can also restrict outages when a problem is detected. In cases where an outage is slipped past, SCADA's database can help workers identify the source of the failure instantly. The automation system also increases the time of power restoration following an outage. Any authorized worker can reroute the power to unaffected sections from the control room at the press of a button once the faulty sections are detected.