A Measurement and Power Line Communication System Design for Renewable Smart Grids

Abstract The data communication over the electric power lines can be managed easily and economically since the grid connections are already spread around all over the world. This paper investigates the applicability of Power Line Communication (PLC) in an energy generation system that is based on photovoltaic (PV) panels with the modeling study in Matlab/Simulink. The Simulink model covers the designed PV panels, boost converter with Perturb and Observe (P&O) control algorithm, full bridge inverter, and the binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modem that is utilized to transfer the measured data over the power lines. This study proposes a novel method to use the electrical power lines not only for carrying the line voltage but also to transmit the measurements of the renewable energy generation plants. Hence, it is aimed at minimizing the additional monitoring costs such as SCADA, Ethernet-based or GSM based systems by using the proposed technique. Although this study is performed with solar power plants, the proposed model can be applied to other renewable generation systems. Consequently, the usage of the proposed technique instead of SCADA or Ethernet-based systems eliminates additional monitoring costs.