George Flammer, Chief Scientist at Silver Springs Networks
The Silver Spring Smart Energy Platform provides the network, software, and services needed as the foundation for the Smart Grid. Their network infrastructure includes the wireless Access Points (APs) and Relays that forward data from endpoints across the utility’s backhaul or WAN infrastructure into the back office. George said that utilities were quite different than other critical infrastructure industries (public safety, emergency responders, police, etc). Some distinquishing characteristics of utilties:
- Huge service territories: Wherever people live or work, wherever lights are on, and all spaces in between
- Complete ubiquity:“95% coverage in U.S.
- Visible, public, and vulnerable (there are electrical wires everywhere)
- Long deployment lifetimes. Some emergency services deploy ‘on the spot’, but utilities can’t deploy that quickly.
- Utility personnel are uniquely trained to respond rapidly to natural disasters.
Investor-owned utilities are profit making organizations. They prefer to own infrastructure and generally only use public telcos/ other carriers for cost reasons. During disasters they almost always fall back to their owned communication systems.
Utilities face a variety of threats that could disrupt service. These include: Insider threats, human/system errors, and (most dangerous) cyber threats. George delineated four necessities to combat these operational threats:
- Configuration management: what revision is running?
- Guard Borders: what are the attack perimeters?
- Established processes: well vetted, known strengths and weaknesses.
- Forensics: track all security events.
Smart Grid has several distinguishing attributes which need to be reallized by utilities:
- Consumer communications
- Ubiquitous coverage
- Network ‘pre-heals’
- Grid ‘self-heals’
- Future-proof
- Open standards
Independent of mesh, star, or fully connected network topology, frequency agility and massive redundancy are required for a robust Smart Grid communications network. Utilities currently control the operation of their grid over multi-node wireless networks which monitor utility sensors, perform command and control actions, detect and scope outages, and communicate protective information. These networks deliver GB/day and deterministically low latency round trip time (~3-5 seconds). Architecturally they are like the Internet – a mesh network. Wirelessly, they are predominantly frequency hopping systems because FHSS systems are spectrum efficient, more robust than fixed frequency systems, and typically license free.
But there’s a huge problem for Smart Grid wireless networks. In the US, the wireless spectrum is shared and it is well known that:
- Part 90 devices are ‘presumed to not interfere.
- But, dominant source of signals in the band, especially outside, is the Smart Grid.
- Spectrum is ‘sub-optimal’ – which is why it is available for nearly free.
- But, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) market is just starting to take off. When it does, look out for a whole lot more interference.
Mr. Flammer made the following recommendations for utilities to deal with the shared spectrum problem:
- Allocate useful spectrum, especially for command and control operations
- Harmonize operation intra- and internationally
- Dispatch centers within utilities to be linked with other 1st responder dispatch centers
In summary, George re-iterated three points regarding utilities Integrated Critical Infrastructure:
- Utilities are big, public, vulnerable critical communications infrastructure organizations
- Smart Grid technologies are rising to the challenge
- Spectrum availability/operational harmonization is in the public interest
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10 replies on “Integrated Critical Communications Infrastructure for Smart Grid at Connectivity Week”
Previously published articles on Connectivity Week at the global IEEE ComSoc Community web site:
http://community.comsoc.org/blogs/ajwdct/keynotes-and-smart-grid-communications-highlights-connectivity-week-conference-santa-cl
http://community.comsoc.org/blogs/galadriel/summary-connectivity-week-panel-session-mobile-data-offload
Future articles on other communications related Connectivity Week sessions will appear here at Viodi View.
Please share your thoughts and opinions in the Comment Box below.
Alan, thanks for the comprehensive article on just one panel from this event. Lots of great content that you covered.
On aggregate, the utilities have huge data collection and transmission needs, but on the per home basis, it seems like the data is still relatively small compared to other demands, like video or Internet access. It seems like telco and cable companies could easily support the data rates, but, as you point out, the cultural differences between the organizations may be an initial barrier.
Still, it seems like carving out spectrum just for utility and first-responder applications doesn’t seem to be the most efficient. I have an article and video that will soon be posted on TV “white spaces”. I wonder if cognitive radio, which is the heart of making that approach work, could go a long way to gaining spectrum efficiencies and making for a more efficient license regime?
Alan,
Like Mr. Pyle I was surprised that a utility would build its own network. Priority virtual networks within a large, highly redundant public network seems to be the preference for first responder infrastructure. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Intro: Steve Weinstein is someone I look up to. We worked very well together on an optical network project at NEC Research Labs and he is my mentor on IEEE ComSoc matters. A past ComSoc President and long time volunteer, Steve is currently Chair of the ComSoc Strategic Planning Committee that I’m a member of.
As both Steve and Ken suggested, utilities might be better off going to a public network provider for critical applications. But from the ConnectivityWeek sessions I attended, that will not happen in the near future. The main issue is lack of trust and concerns about avaialability (especially in an emergency/ natural disaster). Security is also an issue, especially for wireless mesh networks.
In a forthcoming article, I will describe Silicon Valley Power’s network, which is currently all owned and managed by that utility. They actually have a fiber backbone for a service area that’s only about 18 miles in coverage area. I have particular interest in that utility, which has offered me excellent servcie and reasonable prices for the 41+ years I’ve lived in Santa Clara, CA.
Steve’s comment reminds me of an article Alan wrote a couple of years ago regarding the fiber cut that affected a large swath of Silicon Valley:
http://viodi.com/2009/04/12/could-major-telecom-outage-been-prevented-or-alleviated/
It seems like the best way to have redundant networks is to have multiple providers, with multiple networks in a market. This might be a strong argument for not allowing a T-Mobile/AT&T merger that I haven’t necessarily heard from those opposed to the merger.
Thanks for an information packed articles with many new, previously undisclosed facts about utilities, e.g.building/maintaining or outsourcing their own private networks.
To Ken’s point: Wouldn’t a utility be better off using a public wireless network (3G or outdoor mesh WiFi) for back-up of their own private network? What do they now use for backup/redundancy in the event of network or equipment failure?
Klaus Bender of UTC (Advocate of Utility Telecommunications interests) writes there are several potential smart grid telecom networks: corporate enterprise backbone network, the field force voice dispatch/ mobile data terminal network, the AMI meter reading network, and the command/control network for the power grid itself.
Evidently, utilities have different backup/redundancy strategies and mechanisms for each of these sub networks.
Whatever happened to the “Public/Private Partnership” that FCC was promoting a few years ago for the 700MHz auction D Block? Such a wireless broadband network could be shared by commercial telco subscribers, public safety agencies and utilities. It seemed like a great idea to amortize buildout and operational expenses. Why didn’t that happen? Might it happen now that the smart grid is here?
Thanks for the very informative article and provocative questions/comments.
The FCC got no bids on the 700 MHz D-block, primarily because the terms of the public-private partnership did not make business sense to the private parties. The current state of the D-block is that bills are being circulated through Congress to gift the spectrum to public safety for use as a 5+5 FDD LTE band.
…dtw
Smart meters are seen as a key technology enabler for reducing the output of greenhouse gases, improving energy efficiency and increasing the percentage of renewable energy. Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system. Unlike home energy monitors, smart meters can gather data for remote reporting.
The network between the measurement devices and business systems allows collection and distribution of information to customers, suppliers, utility companies and service providers. This enables these businesses to participate in demand response services. Consumers can use information provided by the system to change their normal consumption patterns to take advantage of lower prices. Pricing can be used to curb growth of peak consumption.
AMI differs from traditional automatic meter reading in that it enables two-way communications with the meter. Systems only capable of meter readings do not qualify as AMI systems. But the AMI does not specify a standard network interface or method for smart meters to send/receive data. How can smart grid ever reach economies of scale unless AMI network interface and related functions are standardized? And by whom?