Currently, using HS PLC and HPGP of broadband PLC methods, and Wi-SUN of wireless communication methods, KEPCO has constructed AMI systems for about 10 million low-voltage customers in Korea. Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), a leading power company in the Republic of Korea, is pursuing a project to supply AMI systems for 22.5 million low-voltage customers from 2010 to 2020. Therefore, in the case of designing an AMI system suitable for a customer site, it is very important for the utility to select an appropriate communication method that can meet the power supply situation and AMI service requirements. Therefore, currently, the LoRa approach is not considered for the AMI networks in Korea. However, although LoRa has a wide coverage area, it is hard for LoRa to cope with lots of smart meter nodes in a densely populated area due to its quite low rates in the order of several kbps. LoRa can be a candidate for communication techniques to construct AMI networks. The wireless communication method for AMI can be divided into 2.4 GHz band methods such as WiFi or Zigbee and a sub-1 GHz band method such as wireless smart utility network (Wi-SUN). G3 PLC and PRIME methods are mainly used in Europe as narrowband PLC methods for AMI configurations, while the high-speed PLC (HS PLC, ISO/IEC12139-1) and HomePlug Green PHY (HPGP) are used for broadband PLC methods in AMI configurations. The PLC method can be divided into a narrowband PLC method with hundreds of kHz bandwidth and a broadband PLC method with tens of MHz bandwidth according to the frequency bandwidth used. The power line communication (PLC) is a typical method for wired communications in AMI. In order to improve AMI communication qualities and network flexibilities, a combination of wired and wireless communication methods is used. Recently, the number of smart meters equipped with a mobile communication modem is also increasing. Various wired and wireless communication technologies are used to construct a stable and efficient field communication network for AMI. AMI generally consists of a number of smart meters, data concentrators, a meter data management server, and a network management system. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is a key element for such demand management, and is carrying out large-scale AMI deployment projects in various countries, such as the United States, Europe, and Asian countries. As one of the ways to solve this problem, the need for a demand management system is increasing. As the sharing of renewable energy in the electric power system increases, it becomes difficult to operate the electric power system stably. In order to respond to the global climate change crisis, renewable energies are spreading worldwide as energy sources. Furthermore, using the constructed regression models, we provided graphical simulation tools of received powers for both PLC and wireless communication methods based on a distribution information map. Through the constructed models, we can efficiently choose an appropriate communication method and plan a methodology for building an AMI network depending on the area type. We then derived linear regression models for received powers according to areas. For practical AMI sites, we selected 18 sites with 48 measurement points and classified the sites into five areas, and conducted measurements of signal and noise power spectra on the sites. In this paper, we first quantitatively analyze the communication performances of HS PLC, Wi-SUN, and ZigBee modems for AMI through both experimental testbeds and practical environment sites. In order to construct an efficient on-site communication network for an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in Korea, the high-speed power line communication (HS PLC), wireless smart utility network (Wi-SUN), and ZigBee modems are currently being used.
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