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Smart communications, smarter grid TextStart With the smart grid emerging worldwide, a smart communications system is needed to ensure its reliability and efficiency. The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), which has set itself the target of establishing a unified strong smart grid by 2020, offers some insights into the building of such a system. The smart grid is coming According to Wikipedia, a smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology with two-way communication to control appliances at consumers' homes, in order to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency. Countries around the world have different requirements when it comes to smart grids. Some developed countries have heavily invested in their smart grid projects to secure national energy supply, protect the environment, and boost the economy. For example, the U.S. government has proposed a Unified National Smart Grid that links all the nation's local electrical networks to solve the problem of power outages. Europe initiated its SuperSmart Grid (SSG) plan, which connects Europe with northern Africa, the Middle East, and the CIS. The system will integrate wind and solar power, and smart grid capabilities into a comprehensive network. Japan will build its smart grid by focusing on renewable energy like solar power. China's smart grid will highlight ultra high voltage (UHV), ultra-long-haul transmission, clean energy, automated power distribution, and bidirectional interaction with consumers. To be economical, efficient, and reliable, the smart grid requires an advanced communications system for real-time monitoring and dispatching, for example, the wind power generated in Inner Mongolia, the solar power generated in Tibet, and electricity transmitted from West to East China. A communications network for the grid generally consists of a power distribution data network and an integrated data network. Future power communications networks will be expanded based on these two networks, forming a strong and comprehensive infrastructure for the smart grid. Ubiquitous interconnection An automated power system mainly covers automatic power generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, and usage. All these fields should also be covered by the power line communications system. Power generation: A smart grid would require that all large electric generators within a country are inter-connected, and thus a large data network is required to ensure reliable power distribution. Using automatic generating control (AGC), the inter-connected generators can generate electricity based the demand, lowering costs, while ensuring stable performance of the grid. The smart grid can also help to integrate hydroelectric, thermal, nuclear, wind and solar power together, realizing a comprehensive and stable grid. Yet all these need to be backed up by a strong communications network for power distribution. Power transmission: Transmission and transformation of power works closely with the power line communications system. The sensors collect running data from knife switches, transformers, and electrical lines (for example, current, voltage, power, frequency, switch status, and phase), and then send it back to the control center. Based on the real-time data from the communications system, operational personnel can use the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to realize functions like telesignals, telemetry, remote control, and remote regulation. Connecting various kinds of power equipment, the communications system is of great importance to the grid. Power distribution: Automatic power distribution requires a reliable communications system that integrates wireless and wireline services. This system should ensure that all automatic power distribution terminals can interact with one another and allow power distribution switches to respond properly, thus minimizing the impact of power outages in terms of area and duration. Power usage: A ubiquitous wireless and wireline network would facilitate communication between power-consuming devices and power-generating equipment, ensuring power is generated based on demand and used effectively, and thus enabling a stable and cost-effective power grid. Using WiMAX and passive optical network (PON) with various split ratios, Huawei can provide the optimum solution for power distribution and usage. The integrated data network for power system is used to monitor production, weather, unattended transformer stations, office automation, and more. Boasting a service management system, the integrated data network is a ubiquitous network that covers power generation plants, distribution centers, power supply units, service centers, and future battery charging stations and communities with smart power supply. With the multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) technology, Huawei provides virtual private network (VPN) solutions to power distribution centers and power supply units, helping them set up a highly reliable integrated data network with sound QoS. The solutions also help enrich service offerings, including video, voice and data services. Strong data network The smart grid should be strong and reliable enough to accommodate power usage that varies according to time and season. The load of a grid can fluctuate, for example, due to short circuits and the startup or shutdown of heavy-load equipment. Electricity frequency and voltage will change as a result, and the control center needs the information through the integrated data network for proper processing, so as to avoid power shortages and possible economic loss. Thus, a reliable data communications network is a must for a strong smart grid. The backbone network of SGCC's power distribution system has adopted Huawei's NE series routers. Featuring high reliability, the routers separate the forwarding plane and the control plane, plus offer standby backup for key hardware components. The network uses a hierarchical architecture and has standby nodes for the national power distribution center and other key branches, while remote backup is also adopted for the key nodes. In a mesh or half mesh networking model, the network has no single link or node, which ensures high reliability of the network services. With bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD), the routing convergence of the state grid communications network is reduced from the legacy 3-5 seconds to 50 milliseconds, realizing quick data transmission. In addition, nonstop routing (NSR) allows uninterrupted routing during equipment upgrades, which ensures network reliability and has no impact on the real-time application of the power system. A strong power grid requires real-time power distribution, and this in turn requires that the data communications system perform well to prevent delay, jitter, and packet loss. The hierarchical QoS matches a queue to each power application to ensure that the real-time VPN service has a higher priority than the non-real time one. Fast fault detection also helps real-time operation. The Huawei NE routers support BFD fault detection, and can detect a fault in 10 milliseconds and report it to the network management system (NMS) for troubleshooting. Smart grid, bright future With the fast growth of Chinese economy, the power demand will keep increasing. In addition, the power grid will require higher scalability to meet new requirements, for example, transmitting power from Western to Eastern China, introducing ultra high voltage (UHV) lines and transformer stations, and integrating clean energies such as wind and solar power. In response, the communications equipment should have a large capacity and flexible configuration. A smart grid should support bidirectional interaction. China boasts 400 million homes, a large number of SMEs and public facilities that consume power. To realize functions like intelligent meter reading, dynamic electricity measurement, optimized resource allocation, and online electricity sales, it requires a smart data network with a massive number of IP addresses. In addition, a smart community would require automotive power distribution. Reaching people's home appliances requires a large number of IP addresses, and IPv4 is falling behind in meeting such requirements. Though they have a great potential for future development, electric cars bring new challenges to the power grids. Building battery charging stations and facilities will further extend the power-line communication network to urban and rural areas. As a result, a massive number of IP addresses are needed to support power distribution, metering, service centers, and asset management. Both the power distribution data network and the integrated data network should be capable of supporting evolution from IPv4 to IPv6. As IPv4 and IPv6 will coexist for a long time, networks should ensure interoperability between the two entities. Huawei has been a leader in IPv6 technology; its homemade IPv6 chipset supports both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, plus large-scale and high-quality NAT64 and port network address translation (PNAT). All these help ensure compatibility between IPv4 and IPv6 applications, and the future evolution of the power communication network. SGCC has partnered with Huawei to build its power distribution data network and integrated data network, laying a sound foundation for future smart grid. Besides real-time and efficient communications, the data network has high flexibility and scalability to support a strong power grid. SGCC is poised to build a cost-effective, secure, stable, clean and eco-friendly smart grid. TextEnd