Using 5G to promote the construction of ubiquitous power Internet of Things

——Interview with Wang Yang, Chief Engineer of Information and Communication Research Institute of China Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd.

Text/Reporter Wang Weimin

This year is undoubtedly the first year of 5G commercialization. On June 6, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 5G licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Corporation. This means that China has become the fourth country to commercialize 5G after the United States, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

According to the "5G Industry Economic Contribution" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, it is predicted that from 2020 to 2025, the total economic output directly driven by the commercial use of 5G in my country may reach 10.6 trillion yuan, and 5G will directly create more than 3 million jobs.

This year is undoubtedly the first year for the construction of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things. At the beginning of the year, State Grid Corporation of China creatively proposed the strategic goal of "three types and two networks, world-class". Shortly thereafter, the company held a meeting to make further arrangements, emphasizing that the most urgent and important task at present is to accelerate the construction of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things.

The commercial use of 5G will vigorously promote the construction of ubiquitous power Internet of Things and comprehensively enhance the power grid's holographic perception, ubiquitous connection, open sharing, and integrated innovation capabilities. What are the specific applications of 5G in promoting the construction of ubiquitous power Internet of Things? What new changes will there be in the operation and management of power grids in the future? This magazine interviewed Wang Yang, chief engineer of the Information and Communication Research Institute of China Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd.

"State Grid": What are the typical applications of 5G technology in the field of ubiquitous power Internet of Things?

Wang Yang: The 4G era promoted the connection between people, and the 5G era will realize the connection between people and things, and things and things. A true era of the Internet of Everything is coming.

At present, the application of 5G technology in the ubiquitous power Internet of Things is in the stage of exploration and pilot verification, and there is no large-scale commercial use. In terms of application scenarios, there are three main aspects: ultra-large bandwidth applications, such as 4K high-definition video surveillance and drone inspections; high-reliability and low-latency applications, which are suitable for control-type power services with high requirements for communication latency and reliability, such as distribution network differential protection; massive connection applications, which are suitable for IoT data collection applications such as sensor data collection in power grids, such as power consumption information collection, mobile information collection, etc. According to the requirements of the construction of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things and the communication needs of different power services, we have carried out experiments and field tests on the 5G network bearer of business applications around the three major application scenarios of 5G in power. In addition, China Electric Power Research Institute and China Mobile have established a joint innovation laboratory for wireless mobile communications and energy Internet. At the same time, we have formed a 5G network slicing working group with China Mobile and released a 5G network slicing white paper at the 2018 Mobile World Congress. At present, 10 related patents and 2 industry and enterprise standards have been applied for.

"State Grid": What is the progress of the company's 5G power slicing technology research and development?

Wang Yang: The company is at the world's leading level in the research of 5G power slicing related technologies. At the end of last year, the company jointly with China Telecom and Huawei released the first domestic 5G slicing application scenario white paper "5G Network Slicing Enables Smart Grid", which proposed differentiated, automatically built on demand, and mutually isolated 5G customized slicing requirements for industry applications. In April this year, the world's first power slice based on the latest 3GPP standard 5G SA network (independent networking) has been tested in Nanjing. Relying on the millisecond-level low latency capability of the 5G network, 5G power slicing will enhance the two-way interaction between the power grid and power users, and effectively improve the precise management capabilities of the power grid end, so as to give priority to the uninterrupted and continuous power supply of the most sensitive load units in the event of sudden power grid overload, improve the safety of the power grid, and the real-time control and emergency repair capabilities of the power grid.

"State Grid": What are the urgent problems that need to be solved in 5G power slicing technology?

Wang Yang: Compared with 5G network slicing technology, 5G power slicing should have the particularity of specific industry applications and meet the various communication needs of different power businesses. At the same time, it is also necessary to ensure information security and stable operation. 5G power slicing has more stringent requirements for isolation, security and stability.

Take the isolation requirements of the power grid for sliced ​​services as an example. The power grid has very high requirements for service isolation. It not only needs isolation solutions on the access side and the transmission side, but also needs to build a fully virtualized architecture on the core network side to achieve isolation methods based on different levels and particles such as virtual machines and containers.

The current difficulties in research and development are mainly concentrated in three aspects: what model to adopt to cooperate with telecom operators on 5G power slicing; how to allocate network resources to ensure slice resource allocation and ensure the higher requirements of power services for communication performance, security and stability; how to ensure that 5G slicing can provide end-to-end quality coordination and assurance solutions for access networks, transmission networks and core networks. At present, China Electric Power Research Institute has carried out research on the adaptation and application of 5G power slicing technology, focusing on testing and verifying the isolation and security of 5G power slicing when carrying various types of power services. In addition, we have cooperated with the three major domestic telecom operators and equipment companies such as Huawei, ZTE, and Datang to innovate and study the dynamic resource allocation technology of 5G power slicing, so as to ensure the end-to-end service quality and isolation of different services.

"State Grid": What impact will 5G technology have on the future development of the power system?

Wang Yang: The deep integration of 5G with new-generation information and communication technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence will change the form of the power grid and even the concept of production services at a deeper level, and promote the traditional power grid with one-way flow from the production end to the user end to accelerate the upgrade to the energy Internet with two-way interaction between power companies and users. Therefore, it can be foreseen that 5G technology will make it possible for the power grid to transform from a traditional energy supplier to a comprehensive energy service provider based on big data.

We believe that the application of 5G technology and the accelerated construction of the company's ubiquitous power Internet of Things will greatly promote the transformation and upgrading of the traditional business forms and service models of the power grid, especially driven by emerging fields such as the industrial Internet and the Internet of Vehicles, which will bring new opportunities for the company's development.