Application of Power Line Communication in
Smart Power Consumption
Jianming Liu, Bingzhen Zhao, Jiye Wang, Yi Zhu, Jing Hu
Smart Grid ICT Center
State Grid Information & Telecommunication Co., LTD
Beijing China 100761
Abstract The construction of smart grid is an important
measure to response to the problem of global warming and
energy shortage, while smart power Consumption is a significant
part of it. As the basis support for the smart grid, communication
technology is the key to achieve its informationization,
automation and interactivity. In this paper, performance testing
experiment of broadband power line communication and the
application of PLC in smart power Consumption pilot projects
are combined to demonstrate the favorable prospect of PLC
application in smart power Consumption field. And finally, a
prediction of the future development trend is also presented.
Keywords-smart grid; power Consumption; power line
communication
I. INTRODUCTION
With the problem of global warming and energy shortage
becoming increasingly serious, governments around the world
are responding actively to tackle the issue, setting strict energy-
saving and emission reduction targets for their own countries.
The Chinese government pledged to reduce CO2 emissions per
GDP unit by 40% ~ 45% in the year 2020 comparing to 2005.
In China, according to statistics, 80% of the CO2 emissions
come from coal, and more than 50% of the coal is burned to
generate electricity, so China's main energy supply sector-
"power industry" plays a very important role in this low-carbon
war.
In the face of new situations and new challenges, State Grid
Corporation of China put forward the strategy goal for the
development of a strong and smart grid. As a significant part of
the smart grid, smart power consumption is the key to achieve
real-time interaction between customers and the power grid,
thus enhance the power grids comprehensive service
capabilities, improve power efficiency, and promote energy
conservation and emission reduction.
Smart grid requires advanced information, communication
and control technology to be the basic support, and the
realization of its intelligent features depends on the reliable
data transmission via the information and communication
network. As the essential part to connect power companies and
end-users, Power Communication Network's "last 100 meters"
has the characteristic of high equipment coverage density and
978-1-4244-5010-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE
environment complexity. Power line is the unique resource of
power companies [1], and the use of power line
communications (PLC) technology to extend Power
Communication Network to consumers home can effectively
solve the networking issue of household electrical appliances
and equipment, dramatically reduce the cost of construction
and increase the efficiency of resource Consumption, thus
making it a preferable solution for two-way interactive services
in smart power Consumption.
II. SMART POWER CONSUMPTION AND ITS
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
A. Status quo of Chinas residential power consumption
According to statistics, China's residential electricity
consumption accounts for about 14.4% of the countrys total
power usage, and the average monthly consumption for each
family is 87 kWh. Ordinary household electrical appliances
mainly consist of air-conditioner, refrigerator, television set,
electric water heater, range hoods, microwave oven and
washing machine. Take electric water heater and washing
machine for example, the two of the appliances consumes
about 9% of the family power. Suppose that the basic price of
electricity is 0.5 RMB/kWh, and 0.2 RMB/kWh at valley time,
if the use of electric water heater and washing machine is all
shifted to valley time, then the total household electricity cost
will drop by 5%. Therefore, adjusting and controlling the using
time and pattern of home appliances has a significant meaning
in improving power efficiency and balancing the load of the
grid.
B. The efinition and Main Characteristic of Smart Power
Consumption
In contrast with conventional power Consumption, the most
prominent feature of smart power Consumption is the real-time
interaction between users and the grid. Through the real time,
two-way interactive channel between electricity users and
power companies, users can inquire about their power
Consumption information, flexibly adjust the use time of
appliances based on the electricity price policy and the load
state of the grid, and safely connect in the distributed power
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sources, so as to improve the economical efficiency and
security of power Consumption; Power companies can retrieve
users power Consumption information, manage the connection
of distributed power sources, and regulate the grid load by
controlling users appliance, thus ensuring the safe and stable
operation of the grid.

C. Requirements of Communication and The Technical Line

The demand of two-way interaction in smart power
Consumption made a very high requirement for
communication network, and how to extend the power
communication network to users home, connect household
devices to form a home area local network is essential. On the
remote side, FTTH (fiber to the home) has become an Figure 1. Topology of BPL Communication Performance Test System
inevitable trend, while the wireless communication technology
and power line communication (PLC) technology are the TABLE 1.FILES FOR TEST
primary means for local communication in smart power Files Rate to playkbps Decoder
Consumption.
Video File 1 486 RealVideo 4
Wireless communication technology has a wide range of
Video File 2 1550 RealVideo 4
advantages such as high rate of success, fast communication
rate, easy installation and maintenance. However, its Video File 3 4096 MPEG4 Video
vulnerable to interference, and the communication quality and Video File 4 7092 Xvid
distance can be greatly affected by walls while used indoor. In TABLE 2.SUMMARY TABLE OF TEST RESULTS
addition, the wireless frequency may be unavailable due to Max Transmission
Number of video (PCS.)
Rate
various kinds of restriction. Therefore, wireless BPL
Peak
communication technology is not an optimal option for a Device File File File File
Value Stability
1 2 3 4
widely use. (kbps)
Power line communication technology uses the existing Intellon
5297.7 good 8 1 1 0
14Mbps
power line resources to communicate, its mature and easily Xeline
accessible. Its strong anti-jamming capability and good data 1 24Mbps
6256.5 ordinary 4 2 2 0
transmission security make it easy to achieve reliable two-way Yitran
6180.4 bad 3 0 0 0
real-time IP communications, thus fully satisfies the 24Mbps
requirements of networking, communication and control of Intellon
33216.6 ordinary 12 4
200Mbps
smart home appliances, with unparalleled advantages over 2 DS2
other technologies. 49598.4 good 18 8
200Mbps

III. BROADBAND POWER LINE COMMUNICATION

PERFORMANCE TEST B. Anti-interference Performance Test
In order to verify broadband power line communication The anti-interference performance test used hair dryer and
(BPL) technologys capability of supporting the business energy-saving lamp as interference source which has strong
requirements of smart power Consumption, we begin with a influence in BPL signal transmission, it is also commonly used
test of data transmission rate, transmission stability, anti- in testing internationally. The interference source was loaded in
interference and avoidance of BPL [2]. two ways, plug directly into the power line for signal
transmission, and plug into 3 meters away from the power line
A. BPL Communication Performance for signal transmission. The influence of interference to
different devices shows in Table 3, the numerical value is
Figure 1 shows the Topology of BPL Communication
descent rate of transmission rate.
Performance Test System [3]. The experiment tested 6 types
of BPL device from 5 companies with 4 different streaming TABLE 3-A. DESCENT RATE OF USING INTERFERENCE SOURCE 1HAIR
video files(see Table 1) which was held in 3 kinds of power DRYER
environment (Equipment Room Power Source, Purified Power Low bandwidth<50Mbps
High bandwidth
Source 1, Purified Power Source 2). devices (>100Mbps)
Intellon Xeline Yitran Intellon DS2
Test results without interference shows in Table 2. interfere way
directly into Make no
41.56% 64.65% 32.12% 90.84%
powerline influence
into powerline Make no
29.99% 34.27% 22.70% 89.07%
extension cord influence

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 TABLE3-B. DESCENT RATE OF USING INTERFERENCE SOURCE 2ENERGY-
SAVING LAMP
High bandwidth
Low bandwidth<50M
Devices (>100M)
Intellon Xeline Yitran Intellon
interfere way
directly into Make no
3.70% 13.50% 16.28%
power line influence
into power line Make no
2.47% 9.73% 8.24%
extension cord influence
C. Test Conclusion
According to the testing data, network established with
200Mbps BPL device can support more than 20 videos of
1.5Mbps Streaming which is same as DVD or no more than 12
videos of 4Mbps Streaming which is same as HD video on-
demand.
In anti-interference respect, separating BPL device from
home appliances, or using other isolate equipment like
isolating socket between home appliances and power line can
reduce the impact to the BPL single.
In brief, BPL Technology can realize real-time two-way
communication reliably with advantages of safe data
transmission and strong anti-interference, completely satisfy
the requirements of networking, communicate and control in
AMR System and smart appliance [4, 5].
IV. PLC APPLICATION IN SMART POWER CONSUMPTION
PILOT PROJECTS
Since April 2009, the State Grid Corporation of China has
built two smart power Consumption pilot project in Beijing,
located in Lianxiangyuan District and Yard No. 95 Fucheng
Road respectively. In the construction process of the pilot
projects, PLC technology has been widely used and has
achieved good application results.
A. Lianxiangyuan Pilot Project
1) General Structure
Lianxiangyuan pilot project uses 200Mbps BPL technology
to collect power Consumption information, uses family smart
interactive terminal to realize the interaction between users and
the power grid, uses wireless technology to further extend the
meter reading to water and gas, and uses smart sockets to
achieve the information collection and control of water heaters,
air conditioners, rice cookers and other home appliances load.
We also create a home security system which combines
emergency calls, gas leak detector, smoke detector and infrared
detector via wireless technology. And finally, Triple Play
service including video-on-demand, IP telephone and
broadband access is provided through BPL technology.
The system consists of the collecting master station, the
property management master station, concentrator, collector,
smart interactive terminal, smart sockets, home security
equipments, and other telecommunication value-added service
equipments such as IP telephone, video on demand, broadband
access. The general structure of the system is shown in Figure
2.
DS2
82.08%
80.96%
Figure 2. The general structure of Lianxiangyuan pilot project
2) Communication Network
The communications network in Lianxiangyuan pilot
project is as followed: optic fiber is piped to the distribution
transformer, then 200Mbps BPL technology is used to cover
the entire low-voltage distribution networks down to the floor
e-meter cabinet, and the e-meters are connected through
RS485. In customers home, we also use PLC technology to
manage home appliances load via smart sockets and control
them, and implement Triple Play value-added service
through BPL. Smart interactive terminal communicates with
water and gas meters and home security devices through
wireless manner. Customers power consumption information,
water and gas meter data, security service information are all
sent to the relevant management master station via BPL.
3) The analysis of PLC application
The BPL Technology, for its feature of high-bandwidth and
to support the concurrent data reading of many collectors just
like TCP/IP protocal, can meet the demand of high-density
meter reading once every 15 minutes in most cases when
applied on power information collecting system. After
receiving order from the collection master station, all the
collectors will begin to gather the information in their own
districts at the same time and finish the data collection of all
the 378 residences within about 1 minute. Since the advantage
of its bandwidth, the collector can make real-time responses to
the order from collection master station and realize the remote
switching power supply control without any delay. But for its
high cost, it is appropriate to be adopted in the location where
meters are fixed together, and it should work with narrow band
PLC technique when meters are fixed scattered in order to
reduce the cost.
In customers home, narrow band PLC and wireless
communication are used in combination to achieve household
equipment networking, and smart interactive terminal is used
to read and control the electricity Consumption of the
appliances. This approach combines PLCs advantages of full
coverage without dead ends and environmental protection, with
wireless communications technologys feature of maturity and
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mobility. The two means complementing each other, thus
forms a real-time, reliable home network.
BPLs support for the triple play service is still limited. As
the previous test results shows, a 200Mbps BPL Master can
support no more than 12 high-definition video on demand
simultaneously, but this still cant meet the requirements in
practical application. In response to this situation, two
improvement schemes are proposed. One is to increase the
number of BPL Master Equipments. In Lianxiangyuan District,
the situation of one Master equipment for one whole building
has been changed into one equipment for every two floors to
ensure the communication support capabilities, but at the same
time, the cost has also increased sharply; The other solution is
to adopt FTTH (fiber to the home), and only use BPL
technology indoor, thus to tackle constraints posed by
communication capability thoroughly. This improved scheme
has been used in the pilot project in Yard 95, Fucheng Road.
B. The pilot project in Yard 95, Fucheng Road
1) General Structure
Featuring in FTTH, the pilot project in Yard 95, Fucheng
Road, is based on the intelligent interaction platform of smart
grid user services. Using set-top box and television to display
information, it has realized a series of services such as reading
and inquiring of 3 meters (electricity, water, gas), property
management, distributing, value-added network and medical
treatment service, all of which have shown great interactivity
and intelligence.
The system consists of collecting master station,
community service master station, concentrator, two-way
prepayment smart e-meter, grid-connected solar power
generation equipment, smart interactive set-top box, smart
socket, home security equipment, and value-added service
equipments such as IP telephone, VOD and broadband access.
The general structure is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. The general structure of the pilot project in Yard 95, Fucheng Road
2) Communication Network
The communication network adopts EPON (Ethernet
Passive Optical Network) technology to pave the optical fiber
to every house, electricity meters are integrated with a plug-in
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BPL communication module, using BPL to achieve automatic
meter reading. In customers home, Ethernet, PLC and wireless
communication such as Zigbee and RF 433MHz are used.
Triple play value-added telecommunication service is
realized through Ethernet connection to IP telephone, IP set-top
box and computer.
3) The analysis of PLC application
The pilot project in Yard 95, Fucheng Road also uses PLC
to achieve power Consumption information collecting, smart
home networking and control. Its application results are in line
with those in Lianxiangyuan pilot project. But in the aspect of
"triple play" construction, since it adopts FTTH, the support for
video on demand, IP telephone and broadband access is much
better.
V. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVE
In the new situation of a worldwide effort of energy-saving
and emission cutting in response to climate change and energy
security, smart grid construction is facing unprecedented
opportunities and challenges, while communication technology
is its foundation and support, and the key to achieve smart
grids informationization, automation and interactivity. As the
power industrys specific means of communication, PLC will
continue to play a major role in power Consumption
information collecting, smart home networking and control and
other smart power Consumption related fields.
Due to the restriction of channel characteristic, PLC still
have a considerable gap in aspect of supporting high-speed
data transmission, "triple play" and so on comparing to optical
fiber communication. In the future, power fiber to the home
(PFTTH) will solve related problems. It adopts optical
composite power cable, using power lines as a fiber optic
carrier, and spread the optical fiber into house while paving the
electrical power cable, so as to realize the comprehensive
connectivity of power communication network and its full
coverage over power consumers. It will save large
infrastructure investment for the country, endorse the power
grid resources with new value of re-development, re-use, re-
value creation for the mankind, and supply full support for the
Chinese governments policy of promoting "triple play" that
combines telecommunication network, radio and television
network and the Internet, thus obtain a new point of economic
growth and industrial reserve, and promote the power grid
development and construction level to a new stage.
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