An overview of FINSENY project was presented in the context of European initiatives that are driving the development of smart energy systems
This annual conference, organised by the Canadian branch of the Utilities Telecom Council (UTC), is dedicated to exploring telecoms issues faced by utilities’ critical infrastructures. The focus was on Canada, with a number of speakers providing additional perspectives from the USA, South America, China, Europe and elsewhere.
Roger Duck, from FINSENY consortium partner EUTC, gave a presentation on the first day of the conference entitled “International Perspectives: Europe”, as part of an International Panel Session which also included speakers from Brazil and China. This presentation included an overview of FINSENY, in the context of European initiatives that are driving the development of smart energy systems. Over 200 delegates attended the conference, including utility decision-makers with responsibility for telecoms, a wide range of ICT vendors and service providers, as well as a number of policy makers and consultants. The conference took place over four days.
Topics of discussion included:
International perspectives, including an overview of FINSENY in the presentation mentioned above, and a presentation from the Global Smart Grid Federation (GSGF): the latter has published a comparison of smart grid drivers and developments around the world, available via www.globalsmartgridfederation.org.
- Municipal initiatives to create “greener” cities, with a focus on Vancouver which has the ambition to become the “greenest city in the world by 2020.”
- Electric vehicle case studies and issues from Europe and North America.
- Technology:
- Suitability of different wireless technologies for smart grid, with a focus on comparing WiMAX and LTE.
- Future-proofing SCADA.
- Communication layers: migration from SONET/SDH and MPLS to next generation Ethernet.
- Adoption of IEC 61850: technical and business issues.
- New technologies: optical transport networks, advances in xWDM, advances in teleprotection.
- Satellite services and the smart grid.
- Telecoms infrastructure for smart meters.
- Emerging standards for field area networks (FANs).
- Land mobile radio technologies: DMR and TETRA.
- Network support for systems moving to IP.
- Cyber security in critical infrastructure.
- The increasing importance of customer analytics for smart grids.
- Workforce mobility.
- Microgrid research.
- Regulatory issues in Canada, with a focus on spectrum allocations for smart grid.
