Smart Metering Systems Based on Power Line Communications

Abstract

In recent years, the electricity grid has experienced a significant transformation in the generation side, with an increasing use of energy sources (renewable) that have a more decentralized structure and unpredictable availability than conventional ones. Similarly, the expected penetration of electric vehicles would considerably change the consumption patterns. These new circumstances require an improved monitoring and control of the electricity grid assets, and smart metering is a key element to achieve both ends. While there are many communication technologies for smart metering applications, power line communications (PLCs) have proven to be a cost-effective solution in a large number of scenarios. Moreover, it provides distribution system operator (DSO) a proprietary communication network and innately integrates the sensing and communication functionalities. Consequently, it has become the predominant smart metering technology in the EU and China, among others. In the last decade, several industrial alliances and standardization bodies have developed a number of narrowband PLC (NB-PLC) systems particularly tailored for smart metering applications. They implement a relay network that connects the smart meters to the data concentrator located in the medium voltage to low voltage (MV/LV) transformer stations. The latter are connected to the management center using different technologies, among which broadband PLC (BB-PLC) has proven to be a suitable one. The bit rate of the resulting shared medium provided by NB-PLC ranges from tens to hundreds of kilobit/s, which currently suffices for reading the energy consumption of 100 smart meters in less than 15 min.