TCP/IP capabilities over NB-PLC for Smart Grid applications: Field validation

This work describes a representative set of measurements aiming at testing the transmission of IP data in presence of smart metering traffic over a NB-PLC network. The measurements were performed in a real microgrid including a smart metering system based on PRIME v1.3.6 with up to thirteen nodes. Three types of traffic and several configurations of TCP/IP packets were evaluated. Additionally, two different sets of measurements were considered: direct communication between master node and service node and communication between services nodes. Results confirm the feasibility of transmitting IP data over PRIME subnetworks, in line with previous laboratory tests. Diverse types of traffic could therefore be transmitted over the NB-PLC network in addition to smart metering data. This enables a multiservice network over PRIME. Among the applications that can benefit from this feature, LV automation is the most relevant, as part of the Smart Grid concept.