An Comprehensive Overview of Electric Power Wireless Private Network: System Design, Key Technologies, and Future Directions

Currently, commercial cellular public networks such as 4G/5G have been widely deployed in China. In addition to serving general public customers, they are extensively used in the electric power industry for electricity information acquisition and distribution automation telemetry, as well as other non-control-related businesses. Simultaneously, power grid companies are actively studying and deploying electric power wireless private networks for bearing high-security control-related businesses such as distribution grid dispatching and distributed energy control. Electric power wireless private networks utilize dedicated spectrum resources, which operate on narrow individual carrier channels with numerous carriers in a discrete manner. These spectral characteristics indicate that electric power wireless private networks require unique system designs that are different from those of commercial cellular networks. Although some proposals have been proposed in relevant research, a unified and mature technical specification for electric power wireless private networks has not yet been established. This paper introduces the development history of electric power wireless private networks and power grid business requirements, with a specific emphasis on system design and key technologies, including frame structure and numerology, massive discrete carrier aggregation, spectrum sensing, security and isolation. We presented a comprehensive analysis and suggestions for these key technologies. Finally, we discuss future research on technological evolution. This study offers indications for an electric power wireless private network ecosystem.