Online Monitoring of Smart Grid Infrastructures Using Power Line Communications

智能电网的原则之一是对系统参数进行普遍和实时的监测和控制，以整合分布式发电，提高电力供应的可靠性和效率。除了可操作的网格功能之外，实时监控和控制还可以扩展到网格资产。这包括输电线路和地下电缆，以及变压器和开关设备等设备。资产监控通常需要实现专用传感设备和与控制中心的通信链路，在控制中心处理传感器信息。资产监控还涉及大量的人为干预，通常仅在发生故障后或在需要停止运行资产的维护中进行。在这项研究计划中，我们将调查和开发使用电力线通信（PLC）的在线监测电网资产。基本的范例是PLC信号，其主要目的是携带数据，通过网格传输，从而能够推断其属性。这适用于传输线和电缆，PLC信号通过这些传输线和电缆传播，并延伸到影响信号传播的连接资产，并且在异常情况下可能生成不同的信号签名。所提出的方法的主要预期益处是监测将实时且连续地发生，而没有任何服务中断和人为干预，即，PLC可以实现真正的在线监控，这是目前无法实现的。这也意味着可以在故障发生之前检测到电缆健康状况的恶化，并且可以安排预防措施和组件的目标维护。这将为系统运营商带来巨大的经济效益，并为消费者提供更高的服务水平。建议的研究将集中在电缆老化和故障监测作为一个具体的和困难的应用案例。主要目标是开发一个框架，PLC启用电网监测，包括一个PLC传输前端和信息处理后端，一起实现自主分类和严重程度估计电缆退化。该研究计划将彻底解决实现这一目标的主要挑战。这些包括基于物理原理的退化机制建模，从PLC信号中提取指示基础设施状态的特征，结合许多测量的特征和集成机器学习方法进行自动推理，研究所提出的方法与商用PLC产品的可行性，以及模型和方法的实验验证。该研究将进一步扩展到其他电网基础设施的监测任务，也将在最好的补充现有的监测方法方面进行评估。**

One of the tenets of smart power grids is the availability of pervasive and real-time monitoring and control of system parameters for the integration of distributed generation and improved reliability and efficiency of electricity supply. Beyond the operational grid features, real-time monitoring and control can be extended to grid assets. This includes transmission lines and underground cables, and equipment such as transformers and switchgear. Asset monitoring typically requires the implementation of dedicated sensing devices and a communication link to a control centre at which the sensor information is processed. Asset monitoring also involves significant human intervention and often is done only after a fault occurred or in a maintenance that requires the asset to be taken out of operation.***In this research proposal, we will investigate and develop the use of power line communication (PLC) for online monitoring of grid assets. The underlying paradigm is that the PLC signals, whose primary purpose is to carry data, travel through the grid and thus enable inference about its properties. This applies to transmission lines and cables, through which PLC signals propagate, and extends to connected assets which affect the signal propagation and may generate distinct signal signatures in case of anomalies. The main expected benefit of the proposed approach is that monitoring would occur real-time and continuously without any service interruption and human intervention, i.e., PLC enables true online monitoring, which is not available today. It also means that degradation of e.g. cable health can be detected before a fault occurs and preventative measures and targeted maintenance of components can be scheduled. This will provide significant economic benefits for system operators and service-level improvement for consumers.***The proposed research will focus on cable aging and fault monitoring as a concrete and difficult application case. The main objective is to develop a framework for PLC -enabled grid monitoring that consists of a PLC transmission front--end and an information processing back--end, which together achieve autonomous classification and severity estimation for cable degradation. The research program will thoroughly address the main challenges in achieving this objective. These include modelling of degradation mechanisms based on physical principles, extraction of features from PLC signals which are indicative of infrastructure status, combining of features from many measurements and integration of machine learning methods for automated inference, studying the feasibility of the proposed methods with commercially available PLC products, and experimental verification of models and methods. The research will further be extended to other grid-infrastructure monitoring tasks and will also be evaluated in terms of best complementing the existing monitoring methods. **