This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will prove the deployment readiness of Power Tagging's technologies for utilizing the electric grid as a communication medium for smart grid activities. Power Tagging plans to inject intelligence into the grid and into the power itself. This approach provides for efficient, in-band (on-grid) data communications. Rather than requiring significant investments in new networks to manage the grid, the company has developed technology that leverages and augments the existing distribution infrastructure. This approach will allow a rapid adoption of the Smart Grid with far less capital expense. The objectives of this SBIR project include field-testing and refinement of devices and algorithms which have been lab-tested and simulation-proven to enable the on-grid approach.
Using the company's architecture, smart grid capability will be deployed quickly and effectively utilizing existing infrastructure, providing a basis for improved grid stability and efficiency. The communication can enable "grid location aware" balancing of distributed power generation such as wind & solar systems with the aggregated batteries of electric vehicles, reducing the dependence on expensive spinning reserves. The real-time, in-situ ability of the technology to triangulate faults, predict high-loss paths, and detect security breaches will provide a new level of grid reliability.
Power Tagging Technologies, Inc. SBIR Phase I Award ID 0944859 The term "Smart Grid" frequently refers to implementations of wireless networks for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). AMI is a helpful part of a smart grid, but smart grids are less about metering and more about distribution automation. Most distribution automation is between the transformer and the substation, and not between the transformer and the meter. Moreover, for the wireless AMI we are seeing today, the wireless networks are separate, parallel networks. Using the electric grid for the communications would be a better and more cost effective approach, better because data would be inherently tied to the grid to provide a richer schematic view, and more cost effective because existing utility assets would be more fully leveraged. Power Tagging provides on-grid communications and a better approach for enabling AMI and smart grid. On-grid communications networks, via Power Line Carrier (PLC) and Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL), have been around for decades. These technologies have had some success, but broadly speaking they have not met expectations and they have not been used for AMI or smart grid. The main limiting factor of PLC and BPL networks is that to provide reasonable bandwidth getting data from meters to their parent substations, bypasses, relays and/or collectors between the meters and the substations have to be added to the grid. Such workarounds are expensive. That cost is the single biggest factor causing PLC and BPL to have limited success for meter reading and to have almost no penetration in AMI or smart grids. A Power Tagging Network (PTN) requires no upgrades or extensions to the grid between meter points and the substations and is therefore a much more cost effective approach. Power Tagging applies sophisticated digital signal processing and data compression techniques to modulate and demodulate low-frequency signals in the harsh noise environment of the power grid. Power Tagging messages pass through transformers, capacitor banks, and other grid components without relays or bypasses. Using the grid as the communications medium makes the data "Grid Location Aware ™". That means a Power Tagging Network inherently provides schematic details about the condition, characteristics, and topology of the grid to enable better distribution automation while also enabling AMI. A Power Tagging Network provides these inherent benefits while avoiding the high backoffice integration costs and associated data quality issues when using a parallel network where the data must the associated to the grid via data mapping rules. Another advantage is that monthly data fees for data transmissions from cellular collectors are avoided. When Power Tagging Technologies, Inc. received its initial Phase I funding in 2009, this technology was theoretical and not proven. The objective of the Phase I research project was to prove the technology on an actual utility grid, by demonstrating effective messaging algorithms and communications management via Power Tagging’s VirtuGrid™ software. Today, with the financial support of NSF’s Phase I grant and Phase IB supplemental funding, these objectives have been accomplished, confirming the potential of Power Tagging Technology to become the most cost-effective and powerful communications solution for smart grids. Power Tagging Technology has been deployed on multiple and diverse utility grids with "first pass" message demodulation success rates exceeding 99% without the use of Forward Error Correction technology. Those rates are higher than wireless systems. The demodulation rate has been quadrupled since the beginning of the project. The ability to simultaneously communicate on multiple frequencies has also been demonstrated. Our modeling shows that our technology supports an aggregate bandwidth that is more than sufficient to meet the combined simultaneous demands of critical smart grid applications such as Conservation Voltage Regulation CVR, Distribution Automation, Demand Management, Outage Management, and Advanced Metering. Power Tagging wishes to acknowledge the contributions of its partners that helped with our research and testing: Dominion, Xcel, Morgan County Colorado Rural Electric Association, and East River Electric Power Cooperative. Without their generous contributions of time, know-how, and resources these achievements would not have been possible. With their support and that of the National Science Foundation, Power Tagging Grid Intelligence for the 21st Century is a reality.
