A Wired World No Longer

Transmission & Distribution World July 2001

By Chuck Newton, Automation Editor

Utilities have many options in addressing their communications needs. Utilities are increasingly considering wireless for distribution applications. Let’s see where wireless is coming on strong.

Historically, licensed radio frequencies (RF) have been used for critical substation-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) requirements. We are now seeing spread spectrum being used for less critical data acquisition from intelligent electronic devices placed on feeders.

Tools for field work-force management, including mobile computing technologies and GIS applications, are becoming commonplace. Fleet management and vehicle tracking are management applications of mobile computing and communications technologies. Service-dispatching operations are greatly enhanced by knowing where the fleet vehicles are located and, more importantly, what crews and what tools are in which truck at which location.

The combination of mobile computing and wireless communications provide field crews with access to substation and distribution line equipment data. Customer service crews and engineers are more likely to be logically routed, and to have in-truck access to job scheduling, paperless work order task description and activity logging using a van-based mobile computer.

The automatic-metering and meter-reading industries have benefited in recent years from advances in wireless technologies, at least for the high-function meters used at commercial and industrial sites. Neither point-to-point nor point-to-multipoint radio is quite economical enough for residential meter reading applications. This is a potentially huge market segment that needs a cost-effective wireless solution for the smart meters that are being developed today.

Licensed or Unlicensed – The Choice is Yours

Licensed wireless solutions are used for communications networks granted approval for a frequency in a specific geographical (service) area. These frequency approvals differ from country to country. It is getting increasingly difficult to get a RF license in the United States, as all of the existing frequencies are near saturation. The advantage to an end user applying for and receiving a dedicated frequency for this application is that government regulators protect the user from “in band” interference.

Increased Use of Public Wireless

A total of 252 North American electric utilities and 63 international utilities responded to a recent Newton-Evans survey question on wireless communications use in their operations.

In North America, one in five respondents are using public wireless, with another 12% to come on board by 2003. Internationally, 21% of respondents are using public wireless, growing to 25% by 2003. Latin America had the highest rate of current usage of wireless public communications at 40%. Planned wireless usage also was strongest in Latin America, followed by Asia Pacific and the Mediterranean, Middle East and African regions.

Specific applications mentioned by respondents include distribution automation, AMR, substation metering. agricultural load shedding, poletop device communications, capacitor switching, feeder automation, and distribution SCADA.

Wireless communications technology use centers on radio (MAS and spread spectrum) and on cellular and cellular digital packet data (CDPD) technologies. Satellite also plays an important role in some utility companies operating in a broad service area.

Private Wireless Use Also on the Rise

Utilities also were polled on private wireless usage. On a summary basis, 40% of utilities in North America were currently using private wireless approaches to perform distribution system applications. Another 15% had plans to do so by the end of 2003. Interestingly, the survey found a reluctance from public power utilities to go with this approach. In contrast, fully two-thirds or more of the IOUs and cooperatives, and nearly that percentage among Canadian utility officials, were using or planning to use private wireless communications.

Internationally, 52% of utilities were currently using private wireless approaches. An additional 20% had plans to do so by the end of 2003. Patterns of use were wide ranging, with Latin American utility officials reporting extensive use of private wireless approaches for distribution activities (67%). This compares with only one-third of the Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and African officials indicating private wireless network usage. Plans were particularly strong to implement private wireless techniques in Asia Pacific utilities (43%), and Latin American and Mediterranean, Middle East and African utilities (33%).

Individuals worldwide are embracing wireless communications in the form of cell phones and pagers. This wireless trend is also sweeping through the industry. We will continue to see growth of both public and private wireless in the electric utility industry as applications are rolled out that lend themselves to wireless technologies.