Air Products and ACWA Power signed initial agreements for the US$5bn hydrogen-based ammonia plant at Neom, Saudi Arabia, in June 2020. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Technical and engineering consultancy firm Worley has been appointed to provide a study for a planned 25GW green hydrogen project in Oman

The project will have a production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes a year of green ammonia. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

A consortium of Saudi Arabia?s ACWA Power and US-based Air Products has signed the US$900mn engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the planned US$5bn green hydrogen and green ammonia project at Neom in Saudi Arabia

The partners will assess the potential to produce steel in a completely sustainable manner to reduce emissions, lower the complex?s carbon footprint and preserve gas reserves for other applications across the country. (Image source: SOHAR Port)

Hydrogen Rise, Jindal Shadeed Iron & Steel and SOHAR Port and Freezone have signed an agreement to evaluate the development of the first green hydrogen plant at Sohar, which will decarbonise the steel production process at Jindal Shadeed?s steel manufacturing plant

Networking gateways from HMS are well-suited for use in BESS. (Image source: HMS)

HMS Networks is giving numerous communication solutions for the expanding battery market in order to solve the energy crisis

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) require communication capabilities to connect to batteries and peripheral components, communicate with the power grid and monitor systems remotely. BESS is one of the keys to make the world more sustainable. Since green energy sources such as wind and solar are not always available, large battery parks can make it possible to store the energy to use when there is less sun or wind. BESS are made up of battery cells that are combined into battery packs. They are then combined into containers and can make up battery parks the size of several football fields. The systems can use new or recycled batteries and combine many different components. However, these large battery parks need a lot of communication capabilities in order to work. HMS now presents a comprehensive package of communication solutions catered for this application area.

Since the battery market has been spearheaded by the car industry, CAN is the communication standard of choice in many systems. Here, HMS offers an extensive portfolio of communication solutions via the Ixxat brand for PC connection, networking, line extension, galvanic isolation and more. In networking, the protection of components is crucial, both from external sources (like lightning strikes) and from system-related issues (AC/DC noise). 

BESS often combine a variety of different equipment from different industries within a single application ? batteries, BMS, PLCs, fire detection units or air conditioning. CAN, Modbus, BACnet, KNX and other protocols can be easily linked via intelligent gateways from HMS, which handle the all-important data exchange while also enabling centralised control. Intelligent networking is also required in order to connect to cloud solutions or SCADA systems. This connection can be made by using SG (Smart Grid) gateways from HMS that support both energy and industrial fieldbus protocols, as well as protocols required for cloud connection.

The SG gateways enable centralised control as well as remote access for predictive maintenance, logging or data visualisation using the i4SCADA solution from the HMS-owned company WEBfactory.