Communication performance of broadband PLC technologies for smart grid

AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) is reflected in two-way metering, two-way interoperability on an advanced measurement system. The access network of AMI connecting power utilities to customer's home area network (HAN) promotes the smart metering automation. In such a power line carrier communications medium, the use of OFDM modulation technique is well with the power line carrier communication channel, to effectively resist the power line channel noise, attenuation and time- varying characteristics of the impact. This paper introduces the concept of power line communication, the basic features and principles of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing technology (OFDM), focused on analysis of the advantages of OFDM technology used in power line communications.

In this paper, based on statistical learning, we propose a method to estimate communication performance for the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) that employs the power line communication (PLC) technology. We verify the accuracy of estimation by comparing them with measured communication test results at a test site. We also present a stochastic model for the probing success rate by applying the estimated PLC communication quality values and the metering protocol sequence.

The paper presents a methodology proposal for testing and evaluation of communication systems in Smart Grids, especially for Power Line Communication (PLC) systems. The PLC technology is widely used in power grid as a part of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) allowing mainly data transfers between a management system at utility and customer-premises smart meters. However, the PLC technology on medium voltage (MV) lines is often used for remote control and monitoring of distribution transformers as well. Since power grid and consequently power lines have different transmission parameters affected by their placement and potentially burdened by interferences, the PLC systems have to be evaluated on site before placed to production. In this paper, authors propose a methodology for long-term benchmarking of the PLC systems using newly developed testing tools. The methodology is subsequently tested on real power grid and a selection of results is presented.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is a key enabler of the Smart Grid. Narrowband Power Line Communication (PLC) technology is currently the preferred choice for many AMI use cases. Different PHY/MAC standards and dedicated routing protocols are emerging. New trustworthy models and simulation tools are needed for their evaluation in large scale deployments. This paper presents a realistic model for the latest generation of OFDM-based narrowband PLC standards. The model has been implemented in a popular network simulator - OPNET. Furthermore, the model and the simulator are validated against a real-world testbed. Finally, we present the calibration process and the scalability of the simulator. The results show that it is possible to simulate large topologies of up to 1000 smart meters under a proactive (RPL) or reactive (LOAD) packet routing.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is the foundation of the Smart Grid system. One of the most important parts of AMI is smart meter communication. Power Line Communication (PLC) technology utilizes the existing power line network for communication media between smart meters and Data Collector Units (DCU). One of the biggest challenges of communication using PLC is the noise level due to residential loads. In this study, laboratory test set up to measure noise caused by PV rooftop and residential loads are observed. Each PLC frequency band was measured and observed to determine the suitable frequency for PLC communication which was the low noise level. Some experiments in the field were conducted to determine the performance of the PLC. Laboratory test measurement result shows the FCC band (150-490 kHz) was outside the range of PV rooftop and residential load noise. On the other hand, the Cenelec A (35-90 kHz) frequency range was in the range of noise signal. Therefore, NB-PLC G3 using FCC frequency band was proposed to achieve robust data communication and lower noise level. G3 PLC FCC band was tested in the real field residential area, the experimental results showed 97.62% successful rate within one-week data collection.

Modern hospitals are beginning to adopt E-HEALTH as efficient complements to the traditional healthcare services. To support the E-HEALTH services, a locatable, radiation-free and high-capacity communication system is urgently needed in hospitals. Power line communication (PLC) system can use the ubiquitous power line network to power the light-emitting diode (LED) lights while serving as the backbone network for the indoor visible light communication (VLC) systems naturally. In this paper, an integrated broadband power line and visible light communication systems with OFDM modulation is proposed for the indoor hospital applications. This gives a brand-new solution to replace the conventional wireless communication systems in hospitals.

Narrowband (NB) powerline communication (PLC) is extensively adopted by utilities for the communication in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems. PLC technology needs to overcome channel disturbances present in certain grid segments. This study analyzes improvement proposals of the physical layer of the main narrowband PLC technologies approved by international communication organizations that are currently deployed in Europe: Powerline Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME) 1.3.6, PRIME 1.4, and G3-PLC, in order to improve PLC performance under channel disturbances. This thorough study is based on simulations carried out by an innovative ad hoc Virtual PLC Lab, developed by the authors, applied in replicable, fully-automated, and cost reduced test scenarios. The analysis is performed by applying standardized test methods and metrics, and by evaluating the influence of a set of representative channel disturbances defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and selected noises generated by distributed energy resources (DER) in normal operation. PLC performance improvements in terms of equalizer curve fitting, error correction codes, and noisy subcarrier suppression mechanisms are presented. The performance gain due to each physical improvement proposal is accurately measured and compared under the same conditions in a replicable and automated test environment in order to evaluate the use of the proposals in the evolution of future PLC technologies.

Power Line Communications (PLC) is regarded as the promising home networking technology for smart grid application since the PLC technology enables data transmission via the existing power line. The cooperation between PLC and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) will be an effective hybrid solution for Home Area Networks (HANs). In this paper, we consider that Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) packets are transmitting in heterogenous communications network based on PLC and WLAN. The existing TCP congestion control has low effectiveness due to the error-prone power line channel. Therefore, we propose an adaptive rate control to improve TCP performance in the hybrid PLC/WLAN HANs. We exploit the communications mechanism of WLAN to improve the PLC link utilization. The methodology of Heuristic Dynamic Programming (HDP) is employed to obtain the optimal rate policy. The bottleneck link capacity is estimated by neural network training. The sending rate is adapted according to the long-term quality of service (QoS) of applications. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed rate control effectively filters out the negative impact from the instantaneous impulse noise in PLC channel and outperforms the existing TCP.

The great advantages and huge amount of profits that broadband PLC (power line communication) brought are becoming more and more attractive to us. MV (medium voltage) and LV (low voltage) broadband PLC system built on MV and LV power distribution network, which sufficiently use power grids resources and save investment spent during information construction, become powerful competitor of traditional network such as optical fiber, xDSL and so on. In this paper, we take Broadband PLC system produced by TaiYuan ZhongBo information scientific institution for example, and discuss the development, system structure, characteristics and application of MV and LV broadband PLC system in detail. (6 pages)

The popularity of the Power Line Communication (PLC) system has decreased due to significant deficiencies in the technology itself, even though new wire installation is not required. In particular, regarding the request for high-speed throughput to fulfill smart-grid requirements, Broadband Power Line (BPLC) can be considered. This paper approaches PLC technology as an object of simulation experimentation in the Broadband Power Line Communication (BPLC) area. Several experimental measurements in a real environment are also given. This paper demonstrates these experimental simulation results as potential mechanisms for creating a complex simulation tool for various PLC technologies focusing on communication with end devices such as sensors and meters. The aim is to demonstrate the potential and limits of BPLC technology for implementation in Smart Grids or Smart Metering applications.

Traditionally, jamming to the wireless in-home system is a fatal threat for Smart Grid communications, which impedes the two-way data transmission between electric devices and the smart meter, and thus deteriorates the reliability of the in-home communication of Smart Grid. To enhance Home Area Network (HAN) security for Smart Grid application, in this paper, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based power line (PL) system is incorporated into HAN, and a hybrid model of PL and wireless communications are proposed with transmit diversity. For the combinational model with transmit diversity, Alamouti code is employed at the transmitter part. Simulation results validate the feasibility of the presented combinational solution, and furthermore show that the hybrid model could tolerate jamming to the wireless system effectively.

Broadband Power Line Communications (PLC) have taken advantage of the research advances in multi-carrier modulations to mitigate frequency selective fading, and their adoption opens up a myriad of applications in the field of sensory and automation systems, multimedia connectivity or smart spaces. Nonetheless, the use of these multi-carrier modulations, such as Wavelet-OFDM, requires a highly accurate symbol timing estimation for reliably recovering of transmitted data. Furthermore, the PLC channel presents some particularities that prevent the direct use of previous synchronization algorithms proposed in wireless communication systems. Therefore more research effort should be involved in the design and implementation of novel and robust synchronization algorithms for PLC, thus enabling real-time synchronization. This paper proposes a symbol timing estimator for broadband PLC based on cross-correlation with multilevel complementary sequences or Zadoff-Chu sequences and its efficient implementation in a FPGA; the obtained results show a 90% of success rate in symbol timing estimation for a certain PLC channel model and a reduced resource consumption for its implementation in a Xilinx Kyntex FPGA.

We address the issue of electromagnetic interference between power line communication (PLC) and non-PLC services by using full-duplex spectrum sensing for cognitive PLC. Contemporary broadband PLC (BB-PLC) standards allow PLC devices to dynamically use idle spectra that are allotted to non-PLC services, like broadcast radio. Traditional spectrum sensing techniques operate in a half-duplex manner, and thus provide sub-optimal sensing efficiency. In this paper, we propose the use of in-band full-duplex (IBFD) operation to allow simultaneous data transmission and spectrum sensing, and eliminate all sensing-only and other wait times involved in conventional spectrum sensing operations. We first show that using the state-of-the-art IBFD solution yields inaccurate spectrum sensing performance due to non-negligible residual self-interference. We therefore propose multiple solutions to address this problem. We show through simulation results that our proposed solutions provide sufficient self-interference cancellation to achieve nearly the same spectrum sensing accuracy as that obtained in a half-duplex operation.

As powerline communication (PLC) technology does not require dedicated cabling and network setup, it can be used to easily connect multitude of IoT devices deployed in enterprise environments for sensing and control related applications. IEEE has standardized the PLC protocol in IEEE 1901, also known as HomePlug AV (HPAV) which has been widely adopted in mainstream PLC devices. A key weakness of HPAV protocol is that it does not support spectrum sharing. Currently, each link in an HPAV PLC network operates over the whole available spectrum, and only one link can operate at any time within a single collision domain. In this work, through an extensive measurement study of HPAV PLCs in a real enterprise environment using commodity off-the-shelf (COTS) HPAV PLC devices, we discover that spectrum sharing can significantly benefit enterprise level PLC networks. To this end, we propose a distributed spectrum sharing technique for enterprise HPAV PLC networks, and show that fine-grained distributed spectrum sharing on top of current HPAV MAC protocols can significantly boost the aggregated and per-link throughput, by allowing multiple PLC links to communicate concurrently, while requiring only a few modifications to the existing HPAV devices and protocols.

Increasing efficiency in the power sector does not occur only by improving the technical losses. Although many thoughtful improvisations like power line communication, advanced metering infrastructure have been done to decrease non-technical losses, but not at large scale. The idea of this work is to attain accurate detection of power theft without installing expensive meters. Proposed system combines and improvises conventional consumer meter and smart meter features to design and construct a small-scaled advanced metering infrastructure and enhancing it to detect and mitigate different methods of power theft with reliable communication using a cloud platform rather than GSM network. Proposed system is capable of locating the theft area and controls the illegal load usage, by placing a separate energy meter. The observer meter energy reading is compared with the value at the main energy meter situated at the individual subscriber’s premises. If any difference occurs between both meter readings, an error signal is sent to concerned authority stating power theft at particular location. ThingSpeak is handed down as a platform for cloud services and data transfer and IFTTT (if this then that), and an interface for sending an alert message without a GSM module is used. The proposed system is simulated on a Proteus platform for apartment models and household models and tested successfully.KeywordsSmart meterPower theftThingSpeakAdvanced metering infrastructureObserver meter