China's largest 5G smart grid completed

In recent years, Shandong Electric Power Company has actively carried out research and exploration in 5G smart grid, focusing on building the Qingdao 5G smart grid demonstration zone. The 5G smart grid project jointly built by Qingdao Power Supply Company, China Telecom Qingdao Company and Huawei Company was completed a few days ago. This is currently the largest 5G smart grid in China. So far, the three parties have deployed more than 30 5G base stations in Guzhenkou, Laoshan Jinjialing, Olympic Sailing Center and other places on the west coast of Qingdao, using 5G technology to enable the transformation and upgrading of traditional power grids and effectively support the application of 5G smart grids. Good results have been achieved in improving the quality of power supply services, improving the efficiency of power grid operation and inspection, and co-construction and sharing.

Power and 5G build a win-win situation

"Qingdao Power Supply Company has actively responded to the call of the national digital new infrastructure policy. While developing 5G smart grids, it has also focused on providing a good power supply environment for the local operators' 5G infrastructure. The application of 5G intelligent peak-shaving and valley-filling power supply is a new initiative for our co-construction and sharing." Sun Dinghao, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company, said.

On July 10, the latest 5G peak-shaving and valley-filling base station was put into operation at the 35kV Gujia substation in Guzhenkou, Qingdao, and began to provide cheap and stable power supply for local 5G equipment. This is another milestone in the win-win situation between State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company and China Telecom Qingdao Branch.

5G base stations consume more power than 4G, and their coverage is only one-third of that of 4G base stations. If the signal is to cover the same area, not only will the density of 5G base stations be higher than that of 4G, but the network power consumption will also be several times that of 4G. Therefore, how to save power for 5G base stations is also an important research topic for 5G smart grids.

The peak-shaving and valley-filling power supply stores energy during periods of low electricity consumption and uses the stored energy to power 5G base stations during peak periods, thereby balancing the overall load of the power grid during peak and low periods. It is estimated that a single base station will save 20% of electricity costs, greatly reducing the operation and maintenance costs of 5G base stations.

According to calculations, this intelligent peak-shaving and valley-filling solution for 5G base station power supply can save 13,800 yuan in electricity bills per base station each year. The three major telecom operators in Qingdao are expected to build 14,000 5G base stations. If they can be promoted on a large scale in the future, they will generate huge economic and social benefits.

5G helps achieve “zero perception” of power outages

On Sansha Road in Guzhenkou, west coast of Qingdao, two brand-new 10kV power distribution cabinets have just been put into operation. Zhang Tao, a specialist in the Operation and Inspection Department of State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company, is checking the equipment signals. "These devices are equipped with 5G distribution network line differential protection, which can automatically remove faults on the distribution line within tens of milliseconds. Users who are not in the fault area may not even feel the existence of the fault. Compared with the previous situation where the entire line was cut off when a fault occurred, the power supply service level has made a huge leap forward."

The lack of suitable communication means has always been a problem that hinders the realization of distribution network differential protection. Traditional optical fiber communication has a large construction volume in the field of distribution network and is difficult to coordinate with the civil society, so it is not suitable for large-scale deployment; 3G and 4G wireless public networks have problems such as high latency and low security, and are not suitable for the technical system of line differential protection. Therefore, if you want to adopt line differential protection technology, you must first solve the communication problem.

"The emergence of 5G communication technology has effectively solved the above problems. Its advantages such as low latency, low jitter, safety and reliability just meet the needs of differential protection of distribution network lines." said Li Kun, communication technology specialist of State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company.

In recent years, State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company has vigorously developed 5G communication technology application innovation. It has jointly developed distribution network line differential protection devices suitable for 5G with China Telecom, Huawei and Shandong University, deployed 5G slicing networks and edge computing equipment. After laboratory verification, field experiments, and actual network measurements, it has been continuously improved. The one-way communication delay between protection equipment has been reduced to 8 milliseconds, and the protection action time has been reduced to less than 50 milliseconds, achieving a major breakthrough in the field of distribution network protection.

5G helps power grid monitoring achieve “zero delay”

"Attention, line protection team, there is a crane construction near pole No. 12 of the 220 kV Li-Nan Line. Please go and check the situation and make safety instructions." In the operation and maintenance monitoring hall of the Transmission Operation and Inspection Center of State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company, the staff issued line alarm information to the on-site line protection team through the high-definition real-time video feedback from the 5G network.

The high bandwidth and low latency of the 5G network provide more timely and effective guarantees for monitoring personnel to grasp the operation status of transmission lines. Compared with the 4G era, which mainly relied on timed return of photos and videos with low resolution, the current 5G network can provide high-definition video, clearly showing the actual situation on site, eliminating the need for secondary verification, saving material and manpower, and greatly improving the efficiency of line operation and maintenance.

As a new generation of mobile communication technology, 5G not only achieves a significant improvement in bandwidth, but also has the characteristics of "ultra-low latency" and "massive connections", which can meet the requirements of large bandwidth, low latency and wide connection in various business scenarios of smart grids such as video inspection, distribution network automation, and automatic meter reading. The combination of 5G with edge computing, network slicing and other technologies provides a secure and isolated dedicated network for power grids with high data security requirements, which will surely become an important driving force in the construction of energy Internet. (Zang Yang and Li Kun)