Because of the new Ethernet-based equipment that needs to be installed in their substations. The challenge is that most substations are not equipped with native Ethernet connectivity. Multiplexers that were deployed in those substations in years past do not have Ethernet ports.
First, in the substation, more and more network elements, like SCADA equipment, are now Ethernet-based. In addition, there is a need to remotely manage substation equipment from a central site, a need for Ethernet-based video surveillance and a need for field technicians to connect their laptops to the utility’s intranet. I could go on.
Secondly, smart metering system data is concentrated at a central location and from there it has to be backhauled over legacy networks. All smart metering devices have Ethernet interfaces.
In the long run, new multiplexers will be deployed. But in the meanwhile, the testing stage is long and cumbersome. Since the test results might not be uniformly successful, other expensive network elements might have to be replaced as well. The bottom line is that changing multiplexers is not a simple “plug and play” process.
If the substation has no native Ethernet connectivity, the most cost-effective, guaranteed solution is to transport Ethernet over the legacy technologies supported by the existing multiplexers, which include SDH/SONET, PDH and copper. But this doesn’t pose a problem. Ethernet connectivity can be supplied to any substation at an affordable cost without any forklift upgrade. RAD Data Communications, for example, has a solution for providing any service over any technology and, therefore, has an answer for every possible scenario that could be employed for transporting Ethernet over any of these legacy networks.
Germany’s E.ON, the world’s largest investor-owned energy service provider, uses RAD’s RICi series of intelligent network termination units to connect its substation multiplexers with its newly installed Ethernet-based monitoring equipment.
Unlike the service provider environment, however, in which an Ethernet-over-PDH demarcation device separates the user network from the WAN, in the utility market the same device sits on the customer side and functions as a converter.
