[RFI] Utility Automation

[Tyler Stewart]

Wireless network infrastructure for utility SCADA is available now and 
already in use at a small number of companies.  It is a much more mature 
enterprise technology and it's getting cheaper to deploy every day.

My power company has been slowly building it's wireless SCADA network for 
several years and using it to control remote switches.  However, we are now 
moving to build on this same infrastructure to do outage detection and 
automated meter reading.

For outage detection, you really only need one wireless meter per 
transformer, which I believe is about 1 in 5 customers in all but rural 
areas.

BPL still has some fairly insurmountable technical issues to make it 
economically viable and more importantly, reliable.

When a storm takes down power lines, BPL will not work.  Wireless will. 
What could be more important to a power company?  Reliability is the key and 
BPL fails the test.

Tyler Stewart
K3MM


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed -K0iL" <eedwards at tconl.com>
To: "'Dave Bernstein'" <dave.bernstein at comcast.net>; <rfi at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 8:41 PM
Subject: RE: [RFI] Utility Automation


> Dave,
>
> Just playing devil's advocate here.
>
> There are many different SCADA-type systems that could be developed and
> used by utilities but all have one common thing that's missing today:
> Network Infrastructure covering all customers.  Sure, some small 
> percentage
> of customers today now have cable modems, DSL, and the like, but not ALL 
> of
> them.  Not even most of them.  Most of them have no reliable or easily
> accessed data link into the home.
>
> Here are just three of many possible schemes:
>
> 1.  DA or Distribution Automation does not require connections to any 
> homes
> but it does to various control equipment (switches, cap banks, etc.). 
> This
> completely lacks any infrastructure today EVEN IF EVERY HOME HAD CABLE
> MODEMS OR DSL.  Some utilities have used wireless to do this in remote
> areas like northern MN.  But the coverage area is limited by wireless
> issues and infrastructure costs of wide area radio systems capable of
> handling wireless data.
>
> 2.  Outage Detection is only useful if a large percentage or nearly every
> home has a link to provide meaningful info to the utility.  If only 
> 10%-30%
> have it, they won't be able to tell from the data if the outage is a lot 
> of
> down feeds to homes or a major outage caused by one single device or feed.
> So they will still need to revert to the old way of handling this outage.
> But if they know it's every home that's out on a given circuit, they can
> now address that outage much faster and more efficiently than before.  A
> BPL Network with new meters everywhere (yes, expensive to do all at once!)
> could provide meaningful outage detection data.  This will take time to
> migrate towards.
>
> 3.  Energy Mgmt could be done on a limited basis whenever a customer wants
> it installed to get a lower electric rate.  This is mostly controlling
> overall load through cycling customers' A/C & water heaters OFF/ON
> depending on system load.  It could be made available today to the few who
> have a reliable network connection (DSL or cable), but the typical person
> who'd be interested in the savings (lower income households) probably do
> not have DSL or cable network connections so BPL would reach these folks.
> Watch out what the network providers might start doing once this becomes
> widespread.  This is just speculation, but there might be additional ISP
> costs to allow such commerical access to your home if there are different
> rates for commercial than normal residential access.
>
> With BPL, utilities will have "their own network" which they have control
> over.  No sudden additional charges by outside suppliers.  That's a lot
> more attractive in many ways.  If they could've really done this years 
> ago,
> they would have.
>
> For some utilities like public utilities, this may be the only reason they
> seriously take a look at BPL since they may not be able to get into the
> internet aspect due to regulatory restrictions.  Leasing bandwidth to an
> ISP might be an option and would be icing on the BPL cake.  To hams it
> doesn't justify polluting 40-50Mhz or more  of spectrum; but to
> non-hams--the other 99.7% of the population, that's another story.  It's
> going to get worse before it gets better, if it does.
>
> 73, de ed -K0iL
> Omaha, NE
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Bernstein
> I've seen no description of how real-time utility control might work, and
> so
> can't comment on that aspect.
>
> I don't at all discount time-of-day meter meter reading; my previous
> message
> described it as a "win-win" for everyone. Were power companies focused on
> this, they could introduced it years ago using techniques like those
> employed by pay-per-view suppliers.
>
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