China State Grid Selects Langfang Gao Shan Meters

Smart meters play a vital role in the efficient distribution of electric power to consumers and simultaneously help to conserve energy. Semitech Semiconductor, a provider of advanced semiconductor devices that are deployed within electricity grids to convert them into smart grids, recently revealed that the China State Grid in the Hebei Provice of China has selected its GS18 Power Line Communications or ‘PLC’ semiconductor for mass deployment within LangFang Gao Shan smart meters.

The semiconductor chips offered by Semitech allows utilities to connect to their customers and convert ordinary homes into energy-aware ‘Smart Homes’ which correspond to the grid conditions, thereby establishing an efficient communications network. These chips are installed in smart meters, smart grid monitors and street light controllers.

More than 5,000 Semitech PLC smart meters have been deployed by Gao Shan in two residential sites for sub metering and one village site for the remote-reading of meters during the introductory phase. Featuring a power line node to node distance of up to 3 Km, these meters allow for the real-time reading up to a height of 18 floors in the multistoried buildings, supporting a data communication rate of 18 Kbps.

LangFang Gao Shan has been leveraging the potential of Semitech power line communications solutions within its Medium Voltage or ‘MV’ products since 2007, in order to offer enhanced power line communications services to the China State Grid. Recently, the company decided to launch its PLC Smart Meters deploying the GS18 PLC modem within the volume low voltage smart metering market as well.

The GS18 PLC modem by Semitech enables data transfer through 18 independent OFDM channels, all of which can be used to send and receive the same data. Additionally, it offers error-free and reliable data throughput at 1 Kbps, while the semiconductor device provides a raw data rate of 125 Kbps.

“Until now, smart meters in China have been used for lower performance meter reading applications. To enable the benefits of the smart grid, higher reliability, data through put and range are required,” commented Chen Yong Shan, chairman at LangFang Gao Shan, in a statement. “This is what the Gao Shan meters using the Semitech GS18 PLC achieve.”

In October 2011, Semitech Semiconductor announced the release of SM2400 device, a multi-standard OFDM based PLC transceiver. Providing optimized flexibility, the SM2400 has been designed to function easily across a number of noisy smart grid environments which complying with pre-determined standards and proprietary modes.