1. Iberdrola experience with massive BPL deployment over MV for Smart Grid
WSPLC’16 – Paris, France
October 2016

2. Index 1
Background

3. 1. Background

4. Traditional involvement with PLC
1. Background
Traditional involvement with PLC
Analog Power Line Carrier, same as many other utilities (~7 links left today)
First trials (‘playing’ with the technology) in the 80’s
Some more serious experiences/pilots in the 90’s, led European and international initiatives (e.g. IPCF)
Jumped into the Internet bubble after testing the technology, started providing commercial services in By 2005, service stopped. Technologically it worked: BPL on MV and LV lines. Know-how started to accrue.

5. Index 2
Motivation

6. Smart Metering mandate in Spain (Royal Decree 809/2006 etc.)
2. Motivation
Smart Metering mandate in Spain (Royal Decree 809/2006 etc.)
Situation at that time seen as ‘locked market’ with proprietary or legacy solutions
Successfully initiated activity on narrowband PLC (PRIME), to be deployed over LV networks (up to ~11M smart meters)
PLC architecture meant basically communications had to be delivered to the Data Concentrator location, which is usually a so-called ‘Secondary Substation’ where one or more transformers convert MV to LV.
… might BPL over MV lines be part of the solution?

7. 2. Motivation

8. Type # 2. Motivation Substations (Primary) Thousands
(1, ,300)
Distribution Substations (Above ground & Pole-mount)
Tens of Thousands
(40,000 & 29,000)
Distribution Substations (Below ground)
(29,000)
Smart meters
Millions
(10,900,000)

9. Royal Decree established intermediate milestones and final deadline
2. Motivation
Timeline
Royal Decree established intermediate milestones and final deadline
December 31st 2018: all meters replaced
Opportunity for Smart Grid services at 80k+ Secondary Substations: various degrees of automation, sensing, future services (e.g. surveillance)
Ramp-up of deployment started in 2010
Currently close to 50k Secondary Substations deployed, some 18,000 have BPL, installing around 100 new BPL devices a week.

10. Index 3
Requirements & functionalities

11. Telecommunications Network
3. Requirements & functionalities
Telecommunications Network
ACCESS NETWORK
Substation
MV BPL 11

12. Has to be comparable in CAPEX+OPEX:
3. Requirements & functionalities
Requirements
Should be giving at least speeds of mobile GPRS/3G, plus comparable (or better) reliability
Has to be comparable in CAPEX+OPEX:
BPL allows for backbone sharing among several SS’s
Controlled OPEX
Better than mobile for 8-year amortization for BPL clusters of around 5 SS’s
Needs to be easily deployed and seamlessly integrated into Smart Grid
Needs to allow for multiple vendors

13. Supports any upper layer protocol
3. Requirements & functionalities
Functionalities
Broadband technology selected. BPL of Marvell (ex-DS2), also known as OPERA technology (DSS 9003 chipset).
Basic PHY technology: 1536 OFDM subcarriers in configurable BW’s: 10, 20 or 30 MHz. Concatenation of 4D-TCM and Reed Solomon coding. Adaptive modulation from 1 to 10 bit/Hz (Amplitude & DPSK)
MAC: Combination of TDM and CSMA. Master-slave with token. Each transceiver acts like an Ethernet bridge
Supports any upper layer protocol

14. Index 4
Planning & deployment

15. First step: definition of planning rules!
4. Planning & deployment
First step: definition of planning rules!
MV-BPL networks require some planning to maximize penetration in a certain area while keeping performance. Main factors to consider are:
Overhead/underground MV cables
Frequency band(s)
Maximum distances considered for P2P BPL link (depends on freq band and type of cable)
Minimum distances to avoid interference among unsynchronized BPL clusters that use the same freq band (depends on freq band and type of cable)
Maximum number of nodes per cluster
Maximum number of consecutive hops in a BPL chain.
Factors are mainly technology limits that were extracted from experience, so conservative values were adopted for standard planning rules. 15

16. Assignment of backbone to every BPL cluster
4. Planning & deployment
Assignment of backbone to every BPL cluster
Every cluster must have at least 1 backbone connection.
Backbones shall preferably be placed at the location of the Master device.
The priority for backbone selection in BPL cells are:
Optical Fiber
xDSL/HFC
3G/2G mobile 16

17. Current planning rules: have demonstrated success!
4. Planning & deployment
Current planning rules: have demonstrated success!
Only underground MV
Frequency bands: two modes (2-7 MHz [mode 1] and 8-18 MHz [mode 2]). No notching.
Max distance
Mode 1, ‘new’ cable: 1000 m
Mode 2, ‘new’ cable: 700 m
1 m of ‘old’ cable = 2 m of ‘new’ cable
Min ‘guard’ distance
Mode 1, ‘new’ cable: 2000 m
Mode 2, ‘new’ cable: 1500 m
1 m of ‘old’ cable = 1.5 m of ‘new’ cable
Max 20 nodes per cluster (no less than 5)
Max 9 hops in an ‘arm’ from the Master up to an slave 17

18. Actual BPL planning ‘process’
4. Planning & deployment
Actual BPL planning ‘process’
Part of a generic ‘telecoms planning’ for every SS deployed as part of the Smart Grid/metering effort: gives a comms solution to each one.
The whole network is divided into areas, which are further divided into sets of around 100 SS’s: that’s the unit for ‘planning’.
An iterative algorithm -that proposes BPL planning over the 100 SS’s while using the 2 modes- then runs on the whole set, trying to maximize a certain “scoring” while complying to all of the planning criteria.
Then a Master is selected for each cluster (center of masses approximately) and a backbone assigned.
SS’ not covered by BPL get another technology (mostly 2G/3G). 18

19. 19

20. 20

21. 21

22. ¿GPRS? 22

24. BPL BPL Deployment Steps followed:
4. Planning & deployment
BPL Deployment
BPL
Steps followed:
Logistic process for selecting provider of BPL devices and couplers.
Identification of Topology of BPL network (need for multi-injection).
Integration of devices in cabinets.
Commissioning of BPL technology according to manuals.
48-hour stress tests to validate correct performance.
Continuous monitoring and supervision of stable performance.
BPL Signal Quality. Alarms and performance reporting.
Note: SS’s serviced with BPL do not transition to production (O&M) until all SS’s in the cluster have gone through step 5 above. They go into production as a ‘single unit’.

25. IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE: fiber optic backbone + BPL
4. Planning & deployment
IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE: fiber optic backbone + BPL
Secondary Substation (MV/LV)
IBERDROLA NETWORK
Optical Fiber Network
MV BPL
LV Lines
Optical Fiber
MV Line
Coaxial
Ethernet
LV Line
Filter
RACK
MV Switchgear
MV Switchgear
To other substation
To other substation
BPL Coupler
MV Line
BPL Coupler
MV Line

26. IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE: 2G/3G+ BPL
4. Planning & deployment
IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLE: 2G/3G+ BPL
Secondary Substation (MV/LV)
IBERDROLA NETWORK
2G/3G
TELCO NETWORK
MV BPL
LV Lines
MV Line
Coaxial
Ethernet
LV Line
Filter
RACK
MV Cabinet
MV Cabinet
To other substation
To other substation
MV Line
BPL Coupler
BPL Coupler
MV Line

27. Index 5
Real products

28. BPL Capacitive Couplers
5. Real products
BPL Capacitive Couplers
BPL Signal Coupling
CAMT-5
CAMT-1
Air-insulated MV switchgear
SF6-insulated MV switchgear
… others being tested

29. BPL Capacitive Couplers Installation
5. Real products
BPL Capacitive Couplers Installation
BPL Signal Coupling
CAPACITIVE (AIR)
CAPACITIVE (SF6)

30. 5. Real products
Corinex
Ormazabal 30

31. Also Huawei, ZIV… being tested
5. Real products
Also Huawei, ZIV… being tested
GE (Alstom) 31

32. Index 6
Remarks & Conclusions

33. BPL achieves better results than e.g. mobile 2G/3G:
6. Remarks & Conclusions
… some final thoughts
BPL achieves better results than e.g. mobile 2G/3G:
Application throughputs <100 kbps against 2 Mbps (FW upgrade)
Latency ms against ms
Improved network availability
Cost effective: comparable
Gone with the practical approach: known OPERA technology (others: G.hn, IEEE 1901)
High Availability (backbone) a possibility
Cornerstone of Smart Grid scenario for underground MV networks. Understand not immediate to master, but interest is growing.

35. Thank you Please check my recently co-authored book: