A New Methodology for Network Scale Simulation of Emerging Power Line Communication Standards

This paper presents the development of a new methodology for the simulation of power line communication (PLC) within the popular electromagnetic transients programme-alternative transients programme (EMTP-ATP). As a first application, the comparative performance of the emerging orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based Prime and G3-PLC narrowband standards is investigated. Models of both standards have been created within the EMTP-ATP and simulations performed using frequency-dependent line models and realistic transformer models as terminations. It is observed that both standards are severely affected by the highly frequency selective nature of the Medium Voltage (MV) power line channel and a more considered choice of OFDM parameters may be necessary for optimal performance on MV networks.