Aclara smart grid: Taking advantage of RF and power line communications

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By Doug Peeples

SGN News Editor

Power line communications (PLC) has had a bad rap, particularly in the U.S., for a long time and has been declared officially dead any number of times. But during a conversation with Aclara's senior product marketing manager Edward J. Kobeszka at the recent Smart Energy International conference, he made it pretty clear that as far as his company is concerned, PLC is still very much alive.

He should know. Aclara uses both communications technologies. Its Two-Way Automatic Communications System (TWACS®) uses PLC in that set of AMI solutions. The company's STAR® Network AMI system uses radio communications.

TWACS solutions offer two-way communications with electric meters, billing, load control, demand response, outage detection and assessment, and more. The STAR system offers automated meter reading, enhanced customer service, billing, consumption reporting and water loss detection, to name a few. Aclara's technologies are used by electric, gas and water utilities.

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And while TWACS is popular in rural areas where communications capabilities over long distances is needed, that PLC-based system has also found a home with large investor-owned utilities. The STAR system has been adopted by a range of utilities, from small municipal water systems to large investor-owned electric and gas utilities.

It must be a good strategy. As Kobeszka said, Aclara's technologies are in use by more than 300 utilities with 15 million end points.

He took a fairly direct approach to the drubbing PLC frequently gets. "People think it's old and slow. If it's reliable and it works, they see it as old and slow." He acknowledged that PLC is a hard sell in the U.S. compared to RF and RF mesh systems, but is much more robust in the United Kingdom – where networks are built a bit differently and the technology is easier to use. He did acknowledge that while PLC works in urban and suburban areas, RF can be a better fit, particularly in terms of cost.

PLC slow? "How long does it take to flip a switch and turn a light on? It's pretty fast. Our signal is just as fast." He added that line noise (interference) simply isn't an issue. And, PLC can send multiple messages and isn't limited to bandwidth or bit rate because of the concurrence of the system: "Every feeder, every phase, every bus is working at the same time."

Kobeszka also brought up the simple issue of practicality. "OK, RF can bring more data, but what are you doing with all that data? How much information does a customer really need – and at what cost?"

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