Fuelling power sector growth

How emerging communication technologies can help India’s power sector drastically improve its quality of services and profitability

- SOMESH KUMAR

In the wake of a new digital era, it has become important to understand the primary thrust area to catalyze our country’s agenda of power reforms, despite the challenges faced due to the slow absorption of new technologies. With communication technologies evolving rapidly the power sector is poised for an era of ubiquitous connectivity. This internet of energy (IoE), comprising of communication infrastructure and a plethora of energy devices, is touted to become a foundational infrastructure for smart grid deployment.

Popular communication technologies include radio frequency (RF), cellular (3G, 4G, NB-IoT, 5G), and power line carrier (PLC) communications. RF technologies lead to a low total cost of ownership and offer high reliability and hence, are being considered a preferable option for both mission-critical and non-mission-critical applications in power utilities. In addition, different types of devices can be used over the same RF network in the form of RF canopy, thereby providing power utilities the option to gradually scale up the same communication network for other business applications basis the need.