A new global collaboration will be announced by twelve major players in the smart grid industry. The deployment of the new power line communications protocol called G3-PLC will be supported through this global partnership. An announcement in this regard will be made at the Metering Europe Conference. The conference will be held from October 4 - 6, 2011 in Amsterdam. Enexis, ERDF, Maxim Integrated Products and STMicroelectronics (News - Alert) are some of the major players who will be a part of this collaboration. Other partners in the association include Texas Instruments (News - Alert), Cisco, Itron, Landis & Gyr, Nexans, Sagemcom and Trialog.

Digital information through electrical power lines will be transmitted by the new Power Line Communications or PLC technology. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing or OFDM will be used for the same. The smart grid will therefore have the most reliable, secure and cost effective mode of communication currently. The challenges of tomorrow's smart grid are expected to be solved with this new technology. Several major standards like IEEE (News - Alert), ITU and IEC/CENELEC are based on this new technology. The current G3-PLC specification available today is interoperable with these standards.

G3-PLC's rapid adoption by utilities worldwide in various smart grid applications will be supported by the alliance. In a release, Michele Bellon, President of G3-PLC Alliance and ERDF said, "The formation of the G3-PLC Alliance is an essential step towards smart grids. By attracting leaders across the spectrum of the smart grid industry, we will be able to drive worldwide adoption and help reduce energy consumption. We ask other industry players to join our partnership and support this initiative."

Widespread adoption of G3-PLC is the main initiative of the Alliance. Rapid development up and down the entire electric power ecosystem has been therefore enabled. Designed to operate in 10-490 kHz frequency bands, the G3-PLC is compliant with CENELEC, FCC (News - Alert) and ARIB regulatory bodies.

Specifically designed for smart grid communications, G3-PLC is a global open power line communication protocol. Apart from enabling smart meter management, the electrical distribution network can be controlled and monitored with this protocol. Energy management, EV charging, lighting control and other smart grid applications can be also controlled and monitored with G3-PLC.