Ensuring Uninterrupted MTC Service Availability during Emergencies Using LTE/5G Public Mobile Land Networks

Shubham Rohilla,Padraic McKeever,Abhinav Shrivastava ,Antonello Monti,Zain Mehdi

doi:10.3390/telecom1030013

Shubham Rohilla, Padraic McKeever + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/telecom1030013

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Journal: Telecom	Publication Date: Oct 10, 2020
License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Ericsson (Germany), RWTH Aachen University

Abstract

During emergencies LTE/5G-based public mobile land networks (PLMNs) restrict network access by normal users, which means a lack of service reliability which limits application of LTE/5G for machine-type communication (MTC) in critical applications, such as power systems This paper shows how existing LTE/5G features can be used to differentiate MTC of devices in a microgrid from other MTC or human-to-human (H2H) communication and ensure that these microgrid devices have service during emergencies, which enables use of LTE/5G communication to co-ordinate the use of distributed energy resources (DER) in microgrids, so that they can autarkically perform blackout recovery of an islanded microgrid. It is shown that this method allows the blackout recovery 100 times faster than with a conventional black start. The microgrid blackout recovery is demonstrated using the LTE/5G PLMN Access Barring feature. The disadvantage of using PLMN-based Access Barring is the need to define two separate PLMNs in one radio cell, which is an inefficient use of radio spectrum. However, this can be avoided by using the Extended Access Class Barring (EAB) override or application-specific congestion control (ACDC) features of the CAT-M1 low-power wide-area MTC technology, which are included in LTE and 5G standards.

Highlights

The operation of power systems relies on communications networks, which themselves rely on the power supply, so that power systems and their communications networks form a mutually dependent cyber-physical system
The contribution of this paper is to show how LTE/5G public mobile land networks (PLMNs) communication can ensure reliable communications for selected machine-type communication (MTC) devices during emergency conditions, without giving these devices additional priority over other network users during normal conditions or adversely affecting the service to prioritised users during emergencies
Reliable communication is the enabler of black start in autarkic distributed energy resources (DER) powered microgrids

Summary

Introduction

The operation of power systems relies on communications networks, which themselves rely on the power supply, so that power systems and their communications networks form a mutually dependent cyber-physical system. Loss of communication can lead to power failures and power failures can lead to loss of communications, with consequential cascading failures [1]. Hybrid redundant communications systems [2] can fail if the redundant systems both depend on the grid power supply. The aim of this paper is to show how 5G/LTE-based PLMNs can provide reliable communications in a microgrid during blackouts. Existing works on reliability of communications in power grids and microgrids do not address communication systems that continue to work with a widespread loss of mains power but assume that mains power is present [2,3,4,5]

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