A multi-vendor open powerline communications standard can enable the smart grid by communicating between the utility companies and customer meters.
PRIME Alliance is focused on the development of a new open, public and non-proprietary powerline carrier communications solution that would support real-time smart metering functionalities and also provide the basis for distribution networks in an entire smart grid vision, the company said.
Tom Willie, PRIME Alliance vice chairman from member company Current Group, said: “The smart grid vision evolved into reality when we had proven test-cells operating in live distribution cells.”
“Legacy metering approaches required utilities to accept that the communications link between the meter vendor and meter collector was proprietary, in essence locking the utility into a single communications provider solution. Today’s milestone clearly proves that meter vendors and meter collector providers can now integrate open communications solutions that will speed the adoption, reduce the cost, and expand the capabilities of smart grid solutions for utilities.”
By demonstrating that open standards and multi-vendor interoperability for metering and in-home communications can be achieved, PRIME demonstrated that the opportunity for utilities to build their smart grids from true multi-vendor solutions is unprecedented, said the company.
The goal of the alliance is to provide a framework in which vendors of meters, data concentrators, in-home devices, and chipsets could access fully open physical layer (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) specifications in order to design fully interoperable solutions, which would allow multiple vendors to be operational within the same distribution network in one common system platform.
The alliance began the field-based interoperability tests in multi-vendor environments this summer based on multiple chipset technologies in PRIME member Iberdrola’s distribution network.
