NB-PLC Performance Evaluation for Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Communication media is the main component of AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure). PLC uses the existing powerline infrastructure to transmit and receive the data from the end-user of the distribution network to the data concentrator unit before collected and processed in the data center. Attenuation and noise are affected the success rate of the PLC data communication process. In the residential area, attenuation is caused by the impedance of the powerline, and noise is mostly caused by the residential load noise. Therefore, in this study the consideration of narrowband PLC (NB-PLC) as AMI communication media are described and evaluation of NB-PLC performance tests are constructed. The effect of jointing and varying the length of the powerline conductor are evaluated. Moreover, the noise frequency is captured and analyzed using a spectrum analyzer and PLC sniffer to find the ideal frequency band for NB-PLC communication media.