Broadband Power Line Communication and Big-Data-Analytics for Supporting Grid Operation

Abstract:
One possibility of implementing information and communication technology as part of the advancing grid automation of low-voltage energy supply network is the broadband power line communication. In a field test, broadband power line modems were installed in secondary substations and cable distribution cabinets. Beside communication tasks, secondary benefits of the broadband power line communication that are associated with both a cost- and a time-saving potential for distribution system operators can be investigated. Two use cases resulted during the field test: the detection and localization of fuse failures and of interference sources. Since even the amount of data collected during the field test is not suitable for an efficient application of traditional algorithms, big data related approaches become inevitable. Therefore, to enable uses of the collected data for operational deployment, a cluster learning scheme is proposed to translate the data into a low dimensional space. Furthermore, a novel helix diagram is proposed to refine and visualize the data insights in a descriptive way.