On-line evaluation and planning tool for Medium Voltage-Broadband over Power Line cells

Machine-to-Machine communications networks for Smart Grids must meet specific requirements from both technical and economic perspectives. Power Line Communications are indeed winning momentum in this area because they provide a great trade-off between both dimensions. In particular, Broadband Power Line Communications over Medium-Voltage distribution grids are of special interest to Distribution System Operators because they present advantages such as keeping the communications infrastructure largely under their control or reducing the number of required back-haul connections. However, both deploying one of these cells or an alternative solution and the design and planning of such cells involve complex decisions, so tools to support making them are required. This paper presents a novel tool which allows varying most of the technical parameters that influence such cells in a user-friendly-manner and observing the impact on their performance in terms of the Round Trip Time between each node of the cell and the so-called Gateway.