Impact of home appliances on the performance of narrow-band power line communications for smart grid applications

In this paper, we propose a cost-effective and robust communication network architecture for smart grid applications. The data rate requirements of many smart grid applications are low, which makes narrow-band power line communication (NB-PLC), a viable candidate technology. We develop a testbed based on Cypress 3274 evaluation kits (state of the art NB-PLC modems) and conduct various experiments. Based on our experiments, we conclude that this technology is robust and can provide reliable communication without any significant change in the resulting bit error rate (BER) as the distance between transmitter and receiver is increased up to several tens of meters. Different type of home appliances and their combinations generate noise in PLC medium, which impacts the packet success rate (PSR). However, in most of our experiments, PSR remained high, which justifies the use of NB-PLC technology in non-critical smart grid applications inside homes and commercial buildings.