Iberdrola experience with massive BPL deployment over MV

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

Index 1 Background 2

1. Background 3

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 2003. By 2005, service stopped. Technologically it worked: BPL on MV and LV lines. Know-how started to accrue. 4

Index 2 Motivation 5

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 ~11 M 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? 6

2. Motivation 7

2. Motivation Type # Substations (Primary) Thousands (1, 300 + 3, 300) Distribution Substations (Above ground & Pole-mount) Tens of Thousands (40, 000 & 29, 000) Distribution Substations (Below ground) Tens of Thousands (29, 000) Smart meters Millions (10, 900, 000) 8

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

Index 3 Requirements & functionalities 10

3. Requirements & functionalities Su bs ta t io n Telecommunications Network MV BPL ACCESS NETWORK 11

3. Requirements & functionalities Requirements • Should be giving at least speeds of mobile GPRS/3 G, 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 12

3. Requirements & functionalities Functionalities • Broadband technology selected. BPL of Marvell (ex-DS 2), 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 4 D-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 13

Index 4 Planning & deployment 14

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 P 2 P BPL link (depends on freq band type of cable) – Minimum distances to avoid interference among unsynchronized BPL clusters that use the same freq band (depends on freq band 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

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 – x. DSL/HFC – 3 G/2 G mobile 16

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

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 2 G/3 G). 18

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¿GPRS? 22

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4. Planning & deployment BPL Deployment BPL • Steps followed: 1. Logistic process for selecting provider of BPL devices and couplers. 2. Identification of Topology of BPL network (need for multi-injection). 3. Integration of devices in cabinets. 4. Commissioning of BPL technology according to manuals. 5. 48 -hour stress tests to validate correct performance. 6. Continuous monitoring and supervision of stable performance. 7. 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’. 24

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

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

Index 5 Real products 27

5. Real products BPL Capacitive Couplers BPL Signal Coupling CAMT 5 1 Air-insulated MV switchgear SF 6 -insulated MV switchgear … others being tested 28

5. Real products BPL Capacitive Couplers Installation BPL Signal Coupling CAPACITIVE (AIR) CAPACITIVE (SF 6) 29

5. Real products Corinex Ormazabal 30

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

Index 6 Remarks & Conclusions 32

6. Remarks & Conclusions … some final thoughts • BPL achieves better results than e. g. mobile 2 G/3 G: • Application throughputs <100 kbps against 2 Mbps (FW upgrade) • Latency 400 -700 ms against 80 -150 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. 33

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Thank you Please check my recently co-authored book: http: //www. artechhouse. com/International/Books/Telecommunication-Networks-for-the-Smart-Grid-2333. aspx 35