High Availability solution for medium voltage BPL communication networks

Abstract

Broadband Power Line Communications (BPL) is a technology that has proved to be a very suitable option for the deployment of Smart Grid solutions. It provides a low cost, proprietary, high performance future-proof backhaul between Secondary Substations. This paper will focus on the description of the different “Fault Cases” that might occur in medium voltage BPL communication architecture and their consequent High Availability solution, taking advantage of Iberdrola's experience in the use and maintenance of this technology along its large scale Smart Grid deployment. The description of the High Availability functionality and the results of the tests developed so far are presented in this paper so that utilities might find it useful to provide an added value in their own Smart Grid deployments.