Power Line Communication Research Articles

Characterization of Non Intentional Conducted Emissions Up to 500 kHz in Urban Environment

The current interest in Europe to extend the frequency range for Narrowband Power Line Communications up to 500 kHz requires a thorough characterization of the non intentional emissions in this frequency range. This paper presents results of field measurements carried out in a dense urban environment, where the electrical devices are quite numerous and located at a short distance from the smart meters, and therefore, the effects of the non-intentional emissions on Smart Grids communications may be noticeable. In the study, spectral and time characterization of the recorded data was performed according to CISPR specifications, and then compared to recommended limits for non-intentional emissions in this frequency range. Results show that the levels of the emissions above 150 kHz may exceed the recommended limits for spurious emissions in the frequency band, mainly near the smart metering devices, due to the nearness of different types of electrical devices connected to the grid. This work demonstrates the need of characterizing the non-intentional emissions up to 500 kHz for the proper performance of future Smart Grid applications in this frequency range.

Localized management of distributed flexible energy resources

The integration of distributed energy resources continues to be a challenge for the traditional electricity grid. Aside from additional variability in the net power demand, there is often a temporal discrepancy between generation and consumption schedules which can exacerbate demand peaks and troughs, leading to system overloading, voltage violations, and a low system load factor. This study proposes a control system approach to unify the management of the different types of flexible energy resources through Localized Demand Control. In this system, all flexible energy resources are coordinated using a power line carrier frequency signal to follow a preferred demand curve at the distribution transformer level. The system’s functionality has been confirmed in an actual 5-house microgrid without adverse effects on end-user comfort. Meanwhile, scaled-up simulation studies have shown improvements in the system load factor by as much as 189%, and increased hosting capacity by 40% for electric vehicles and 16% for solar photovoltaic panels.

Use of the Power Line Communication System (PLC) at Low Voltage (0.4 kV) Noisy Electrical Networks – Introducing a New Concept at Power Quality

Micro grids, smart grids, small power plants in range of household size stay in the lime-light. Nowadays, smart metering system stays directly before installation. All of the above mentioned systems require complex and discrete concepts and knowledge. Definitions and use of the right concepts and correct knowledge belong to actual questions of energetics. Small size distributed power plant units, drivers, controllers and switches belong to the power plants connecting to power grids can introduce high-frequency noises. In this work the spectra and the impact of the high-frequency noises have been investigated. After analysing the measured spectra followings can be declared: High-frequency noises can trouble the Power Line Communication (PLC) system at smart metering systems. Noise can destroy propagating parameters of the useful signal affecting the safety of data communication.

Power line carrier communications and its interest in the current power grid scenario

During the last years PLC technologies have been widely developed mainly due to new modulation techniques used for wireless telecommunication systems that can also be applied to PLC systems. The current state of the art of PLC communications is presents many possibilities and opportunities for the utilities. Besides the Distributed Energy Resources integration to the distribution grid is The aim of this paper is to make a review of the existing PLC technologies as well as the analysis of an interesting range of electric applications of PLC.

Battery configuration dependence to power line communication using high-order quadrature amplitude modulation

Power line communication (PLC) within future smart batteries facilitates the communication of high fidelity sensor data between smart cells and external systems, with application areas including intelligent vehicles and smart grids. This interconnected PLC system of smart cells will enhance cell utilisation and safety through cell-to-cell coordination at a system level, leveraging the existing bus bar within the battery and eliminating the need for additional wire harnesses. This paper studies the performance of a PLC system operating at carrier frequencies of 10MHz to 6GHz within four distinct configurations of lithium-ion batteries. This assessment focuses on changes in scattering parameters and data transmission error ratios. Furthermore, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) orders of up to 1024 are investigated for their viability within such environments. The results indicate that the addition of cells in parallel increases error ratios with high-order QAM, and that this effect varies substantially with carrier frequency. Using QAM increases data throughput, allowing for data transfers within large-scale battery systems without PLC bus bandwidth saturation. A prospective centre frequency of 3650MHz allows for a wide bandwidth of 300MHz and 1024-QAM with little signal attenuation and data error. At this frequency, the need for signal repeaters and higher signal output power is reduced. These results are used to determine the most suitable arrangement of cells within a smart battery with consideration of the PLC performance. The preliminary performance of a large-scale battery system with PLC in-situ could be derived from the findings in this research based upon the four battery configurations tested.

Validation of Machine Learning-Aided and Power Line Communication-Based Cable Monitoring Using Measurement Data.

The implementation of power line communications (PLC) in smart electricity grids provides us with exciting opportunities for real-time cable monitoring. In particular, effective fault classification and estimation methods employing machine learning (ML) models have been proposed in the recent past. Often, the research works presenting PLC for ML-aided cable diagnostics are based on the study of synthetically generated channel data. In this work, we validate ML-aided diagnostics by integrating measured channels. Specifically, we consider the concatenation of clustering as a data pre-processing procedure and principal component analysis (PCA)-based dimension reduction for cable anomaly detection. Clustering and PCA are trained with measurement data when the PLC network is working under healthy conditions. A possible cable anomaly is then identified from the analysis of the PCA reconstruction error for a test sample. For the numerical evaluation of our scheme, we apply an experimental setup in which we introduce degradations to power cables. Our results show that the proposed anomaly detector is able to identify a cable degradation with high detection accuracy and low false alarm rate.

A PLC communication characteristics‐based fault location method in medium voltage meshed distribution networks

AbstractA power line carrier (PLC) communication characteristics‐based method is proposed for single‐phase‐to‐ground fault location in neutral isolated medium voltage meshed distribution networks in this paper. The carrier signals with a time‐varying frequency and constant amplitude are processed by a set of PLC transmitters and receivers, whose placement is optimized by regarding the power network as an undirected graph. Two signal encoding and decoding algorithms for the PLC terminals are proposed to avoid using expensive timing systems between the terminals. The fault location technique is implemented by comparing the cosine similarity of amplitude attenuation and phase offset between the fault and a feature library. The node corresponding to the maximum cosine similarity of the characteristics between the present fault and the library is selected as the location of the current fault. Only one set of low‐cost PLC communication terminals and the widely available power lines are needed in the fault location system, making this approach highly practical. Numerical simulations using MATLAB/Simulink have been performed to verify the technique's feasibility. The results show that the method can accurately locate faults in neutral isolated medium voltage meshed distribution networks. Besides, the presented approach achieves a high level of accuracy in estimating transition resistance values.

ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ЗАЛЕЖНОСТІ ШВИДКОСТІ ПЕРЕДАВАННЯ ДАНИХ В СИСТЕМІ BPL ВІД КІЛЬКОСТІ НАВАНТАЖЕНИХ ВІДГАЛУЖЕНЬ МЕРЕЖІ ВНУТРІШНЬОБУДИНКО-ВОЇ ЕЛЕКТРОПРОВОДКИ

The work is devoted to research of the characteristics of Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) transmission systems (TS) when working on domestic house electrical wiring networks (HEWN). The object of research is the component of domestic electrical wiring network (HEWN) – branch. The influence of the branch load resistance on attenuation and data transmission rate acros HEWN fragment with one branch in the cases of the idle and short type of load, the load with active and reactive resistance type in the case of traditional orthogonal harmonic signals and generalized class orthogonal harmonic signals used in BPL TS was reviewed previously. The influence of number and position of active and reactive character load of branch on attenuation, phase and data transmission rate acros HEWN fragment in the case of traditional orthogonal harmonic signals on BPL TS uses is researched in the paper. Calculations are carried out and the results of research of frequency characteristics of attenuation, phase and data transmission rate acros HEWN fragment, formed with widely used in Ukraine PPV type wire (the cross-sectional area of the conductor is 2,5 mm2), in the range of 2 MHz to 30 MHz are given. The research of dependence between BPL TS data transmission rate acros HEWN fragment (in the case of 25ºMHz-PB frequency plan uses) and number and position of the load branches in the case of the idle type of load, the load with active and reactive resistance type (R, L, C) that connected to the poles of the load on the branch is researched in the paper. A comparison of the data transmission rate acros HEWN fragment for different numbers and variants of the position of the loaded branches that poles of which connected to the loads of different types (idle, R, L, C) was made.

Advantages of SiC and GaN Converters in the Context of Reliability of Smart Metering Based on Power Line Communication

Advantages of SiC and GaN Converters in the Context of Reliability of Smart Metering Based on Power Line Communication

Big Data and Neural Networks in Smart Grid - Part 1: The Impact of Measurement Differences on the Performance of Neural Network Identification Methodologies of Overhead Low-Voltage Broadband over Power Lines Networks

Until now, the neural network identification methodology for the branch number identification (NNIM-BNI) and the neural network identification methodology for the distribution line and branch line length approximation (NNIM-LLA) have approximated the number of branches and the distribution line and branch line lengths given the theoretical channel attenuation behavior of the examined overhead low-voltage broadband over powerlines (OV LV BPL) topologies [1], [2]. The impact of measurement differences that follow continuous uniform distribution (CUDs) of different intensities on the performance of NNIM-BNI and NNIM-LLA is assessed in this paper. The countermeasure of the application of OV LV BPL topology databases of higher accuracy is here investigated in the case of NNIM-LLA. The strong inherent mitigation efficiency of NNIM-BNI and NNIM-LLA against CUD measurement differences and especially against those of low intensities is the key finding of this paper. The other two findings that are going to be discussed in this paper are: (i) The dependence of the approximation Root-Mean-Square Deviation (RMSD) stability of NNIM-BNI and NNIM-LLA on the applied default operation settings; and (ii) the proposal of more elaborate countermeasure techniques from the literature against CUD measurement differences aiming at improving NNIM-LLA approximations.

Big Data and Neural Networks in Smart Grid - Part 2: The Impact of Piecewise Monotonic Data Approximation Methods on the Performance of Neural Network Identification Methodology for the Distribution Line and Branch Line Length Approximation of Overhead Low-Voltage Broadband over Powerlines Networks

Τhe impact of measurement differences that follow continuous uniform distributions (CUDs) of different intensities on the performance of the Neural Network Identification Methodology for the distribution line and branch Line Length Approximation (NNIM-LLA) of the overhead low-voltage broadband over powerlines (OV LV BPL) topologies has been assessed in [1]. When the αCUD values of the applied CUD measurement differences remain low and below 5dB, NNIM-LLA may internally and satisfactorily cope with the CUD measurement differences. However, when the αCUD values of CUD measurement differences exceed approximately 5dB, external countermeasure techniques against the measurement differences are required to be applied to the contaminated data prior to their handling by NNIM-LLA. In this companion paper, the impact of piecewise monotonic data approximation methods, such as L1PMA and L2WPMA of the literature, on the performance of NNIM-LLA of OV LV BPL topologies is assessed when CUD measurement differences of various αCUD values are applied. The key findings that are going to be discussed in this companion paper are: (i) The crucial role of the applied numbers of monotonic sections of the L1PMA and L2WPMA for the overall performance improvement of NNIM-LLA approximations as well as the dependence of the applied numbers of monotonic sections on the complexity of the examined OV LV BPL topology classes; and (ii) the performance comparison of the piecewise monotonic data approximation methods of this paper against the one of more elaborated versions of the default operation settings in order to reveal the most suitable countermeasure technique against the CUD measurement differences in OV LV BPL topologies.

Seamless Connectivity: The Power of Integrating Power Line and Wireless Communications

Seamless Connectivity: The Power of Integrating Power Line and Wireless Communications

Design and application of an information interaction device for household photovoltaic inverters

The rapid growth of household photovoltaics poses a significant challenge to the safe operation of distribution networks. To enable the unified monitoring of household photovoltaic inverters by power grid companies, this paper introduces an information interaction device for household photovoltaic inverters based on high-speed power line carrier communication and high-speed radio frequency communication. The study begins by analyzing the information access architecture of the household photovoltaic inverter, followed by a presentation of the hardware and software design of the information interaction device. Subsequent experiments conducted at various photovoltaic stations demonstrate an impressive 98% success rate for information interaction, highlighting the device’s robust reliability.

Electrifying Innovation: The Transformative Impact of Power Electronics in Modern Infrastructure

This article delves into the transformative role of electric power electronics in shaping modern infrastructure across diverse domains. It comprehensively explores the applications of these technologies in energy distribution, transportation infrastructure, and communication networks. The discussion begins with how power electronics enable the integration of renewable energy sources into smart grids, enhance the efficiency of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems, and facilitate advanced energy storage solutions. In transportation, the focus shifts to electric vehicles, railway systems, and intelligent transportation systems, highlighting how power electronics contribute to sustainability and efficiency. The article further explores the role of power electronics in communication networks, including broadband power line communication, power supply in data centers, and wireless power transfer. Each section underscores the significance of power electronics in driving efficiency, sustainability, and technological advancement in infrastructure development. The article emphasizes the need for ongoing innovation in power electronics to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving global landscape and ensure resilient, adaptive, and environmentally responsible infrastructure.

A Cross-layer Resource Allocation Algorithm for Broadband Power Line Communication OFDM Systems

A Cross-layer Resource Allocation Algorithm for Broadband Power Line Communication OFDM Systems

Detection and identification of cable aging using power line communication technology

Detection and identification of cable aging using power line communication technology

Characterizing MIMO Channels in Low-Voltage Electric Power Line Communication through Impedance and Scattering Parameters Analysis

Characterizing MIMO Channels in Low-Voltage Electric Power Line Communication through Impedance and Scattering Parameters Analysis

ERRATUM: Characterizing MIMO Channels in Low-Voltage Electric Power Line Communication through Impedance and Scattering Parameters Analysis

ERRATUM: Characterizing MIMO Channels in Low-Voltage Electric Power Line Communication through Impedance and Scattering Parameters Analysis

SINR Analysis of Windowed OFDM in Power Line Communication Systems

SINR Analysis of Windowed OFDM in Power Line Communication Systems

Partial-Information-Based Non-Fragile Intermittent Estimator for Microgrids With Semi-Aperiodic DoS Attacks: Gain Stochastic Float

This paper mainly focuses on the problem of nonfragile intermittent estimate tracking in microgrid systems with denial of service (DoS) attacks and gain fluctuation. Different from the common DC/AC microgrid system, the microgrid system studied in this paper involves large grid control and power line communication technology, which is more in line with the actual operating environment. Simultaneously, aiming at the occurrence of network-induced DoS attacks, an intermittent estimator based on partial measure information under cyber-attacks is designed. More importantly, instead of the existing single aperiodic or periodic DoS attacks, the DoS attacks scheme presented in this paper is semi-periodic DoS attacks whose the attack range is aperiodic and the attack width is certain. Furthermore, a variable obeying the Bernoulli distribution is proposed to characterize the randomly occurring gain fluctuation, in which the no-fragile observation is stochastic uncertain. Then, two sufficient conditions of stochastic stability of observation error system of microgrid are devised with the assistance of two different Lyapunov theories. Finally, the rationality of the developed theoretical method is verified by a numerical example.