Embedded Powerline Communication in Large Scale Distribution Automation and Demand Side Management System

Implementation of Distribution Automation (DA) and Demand Side Management (DSM) intended to serve both utilities and a large number of customers which spread over a large geographical area, requires a wide-area two-way communication system. DA and DSM devices (customer meters, switches, etc.), embedded with Powerline communication, can use the powerline as a communication medium, to construct a cost-effective and high speed transmission communication network. REMPLI project aims at designing and implementing a communication infrastructure for distributed data acquisition and remote control operation using the power grid as the communication medium. In this paper, we evaluate the REMPLI PLC network performance to show how the requirements for both DA/DSM applications can be met. And a scheduling policy is proposed to provide the applications with differentiate QoS in a multitasking environment.