5 provinces, 7 major “5G+smart grid” application cases!

5G+ smart grid is developing in full swing.

On March 12, 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued"Notice on Organizing and Implementing New Infrastructure Construction Projects in 2020 (Broadband Network and 5G Field)".

The "Notice" proposes seven 5G innovative applications in 2020, involving smart medical care, Internet +, smart grid, Internet of Vehicles, smart education, smart ports, ultra-high-definition production and broadcasting system infrastructure construction, etc.

Among them, inLarge-scale application of 5G new technologies for smart grids, will carry out research and development of 5G end-to-end network slicing and resource scheduling systems based on the new 5G network architecture and smart grid scenarios, develop key network equipment and prototype systems, and provide overall smart grid solutions integrating 5G technology.

　　
So, what are the specific applications of “5G+smart grid”? Let’s take a look next!

　　Application of 5G+ smart grid in China Southern Power Grid

5G+AI provides safe and flexible intelligent virtual private network services for the power grid, greatly assisting China Southern Power Grid’s digital transformation strategy. In the power distribution scenario, 5G high-precision timing and low latency are used to realize differential protection of the distribution network, reducing network construction costs by 50%; in the power transmission and transformation scenario, 5G+AI is used to implement intelligent inspections, increasing work efficiency by 80 times. Through end-to-end slicing technology and chip encryption technology, the safe isolation of power grid services is guaranteed.

At present, the application has been commercialized on a small scale in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and will be widely promoted to the five provinces of the Southern Grid in 2021, with a scale of more than 10 million and social and economic benefits of more than 5 billion yuan. In the future, 5G will be further promoted to other comprehensive links such as electricity consumption, and applied to tens of millions or even billions of power terminals, effectively reducing the duration of power outages, comprehensively improving power supply efficiency, reducing people's electricity costs, avoiding social and economic losses, and saving grid operating costs.

　　State Grid 5G + Beidou drone power line inspection

Recently, State Grid’s first 5G + Beidou drone power line inspection system completed research and development, joint debugging and test flight at State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company, marking the implementation of another important application of new technologies such as 5G and Beidou in the power grid.

In recent years, in order to reduce the intensity of transmission line inspection work, the drone line inspection mode has begun to be promoted on a large scale. With the gradual implementation of this model, some problems have gradually emerged: First, the flight is "difficult to operate". If inspection personnel want to capture the details clearly, they need to take close-up shots of towers and lines. Improper operation can easily cause a crash or accident due to contact with lines, affecting the safety and quality of flight inspections.

Second, data is “difficult to transmit back.” The images captured by drone inspections are stored on the memory card by default. After completing the flight mission, the memory card needs to be taken out and imported into the computer for analysis and processing. Images cannot be transmitted back in real time, severely restricting the timeliness of defect discovery. And if there is a risk of power information leakage through public network transmission, the channel for safe data transmission needs to be solved urgently; images are "difficult to analyze". Inspection pictures taken by drones need to be manually classified, and then magnified one by one to inspect defects, label and name them. This series of image analysis and processing processes takes up a lot of time and restricts the improvement of the overall efficiency of drone inspections.

In response to the above problems, State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company integrated the 5G slicing network and the power Beidou ground enhancement system to tap the potential of intelligent analysis of image defects, expand the application of "5G+" and "Beidou+" industrial Internet, and form a complete set of intelligent inspection solutions such as autonomous drone inspections, real-time 5G transmission of images, intelligent identification of defects, and automatic data analysis. This will greatly improve the efficiency and intelligence level of line inspections, and promote the application of Beidou, 5G and other technology grids.

　　State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power creates a new win-win ecology of “5G + electricity”

On March 4, 2021, Jiangsu’s first “5G+ smart charging pile” was put into operation at the fast charging station on Xuxian Road, Gaoyou City, Yangzhou. This charging pile integrates car charging, 5G micro-station, smart lighting, video surveillance and other functions into one, realizing multiple uses, effectively saving land resources, reducing construction costs, and assisting the construction of new infrastructure in smart cities.

The construction of 5G micro stations on charging piles is another practice of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power in assisting the construction of 5G networks. "Originally, the average investment required to build a 5G micro station was more than 100,000 yuan, but the construction of a 5G micro station on a smart charging pile only requires an investment of 29,000 yuan, which saves about 70% of the original investment and does not occupy additional land resources." Yu Xiang, director of the Science and Technology Internet Department of State Grid Yangzhou Power Supply Company, said that promoting the construction of such smart charging piles that occupy a small area, have multiple functions, and low investment can quickly create shared revenue values ​​while serving the public and municipal governments, and will further promote the development of emerging Internet businesses.

"At present, we are gradually transforming the already built charging piles into '5G+ smart charging piles'. In the next step, we will cooperate with municipal planning and the construction of new charging stations to comprehensively promote such '5G+ smart charging piles' throughout the province." Zhao Yue, Business Development Office of the Jiangsu Electric Power Internet Department of State Grid said. At the same time, the company will gradually expand the scale of sharing basic resources such as site sites, pipeline trenches, and optical cables, expand from traditional physical resource sharing to Internet business, continue to play the role of a hub and connection for the power grid platform, and build an energy ecosystem for sharing and co-governance.

　　Hebei China Unicom and Hebei Electric Power build a "5G+ power" demonstration project

On October 20, 2020, the "Distribution Network Relay Protection Demonstration Project Based on 5G SA Network" jointly developed by Hebei China Unicom and State Grid Hebei Electric Power Company passed the acceptance of the expert group, marking the official launch of China's first "5G + edge computing" power protection demonstration project based on independent networking architecture.

Relying on the ultra-low latency characteristics of the 5G+MEC network, this project has created a "model room" for wireless and digital upgrades of distribution network power equipment in Xiong'an New District, realizing "plug and play" of new energy and mobile loads and high-speed automatic recovery of power outages. The core technology is internationally leading, and several applications are the first in the industry. It is a benchmark project for the "powerful alliance" of two central enterprises to implement the national digital economy and "new infrastructure" strategy.

　　State Grid Hebei Electric Power applies "5G+artificial intelligence" smart video surveillance system

In September 2020, the innovative application of "5G + artificial intelligence" smart video surveillance system of State Grid Hebei Electric Power Co., Ltd. was officially launched. For more than a month, relying on this system, State Grid Hebei Electric Power has achieved panoramic and real-time monitoring of 33 power supply business halls, 20 charging stations, 3 metering lines with a daily inspection capacity of about 20,000 smart meters, and a smart meter bank with a storage capacity of 1.2 million. It has improved the quality and efficiency of power supply services and other aspects, and the customer service complaint rate has dropped significantly.

The "5G+artificial intelligence" smart video surveillance system comprehensively sorts out and integrates the monitoring of business scenarios such as power supply business halls, charging stations, marketing operations sites, automated energy meter calibration lines, and intelligent warehouses. It can automatically capture and intelligently identify 46 types of abnormal events such as people queuing in business locations, workers not wearing safety helmets at work sites, and non-new energy vehicles occupying charging spaces, and form a closed-loop management and control system for instant alarm processing. The system simultaneously opens the three-level operation authority of provinces, cities and counties, and can carry out integrated step-by-step monitoring according to the responsibility interface to ensure that abnormal matters are handled in a timely manner, enhance marketing service capabilities, and improve customer satisfaction.

　　Smart substation inspection robot: 24/7 high-frequency inspection, completing three days of work in one hour

Pengcheng Substation is a 5G centralized application demonstration point in the Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau’s “5G + Smart Grid” ecosystem. The project was awarded a 5G smart model project license at Shenzhen’s “Light up Shenzhen, 5G Smart City Conference”.

It is understood that the daily load of Pengcheng Substation accounts for about 20% of the Shenzhen power grid. It is an important hub substation for sending electric energy to Shenzhen after the completion of the Northwest Yunnan DC project. In the past, a large number of equipment inspections, operations and other work had to be completed manually on site, and the work burden was relatively heavy.

At the Pengcheng substation, a small robot is blinking its electronic eyes, carefully scanning every screw in the power station, and transmitting the data back to the control room terminal. The 500 kV Pengcheng substation that has just been renovated is a new generation of 5G smart substation of China Southern Power Grid Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau. This kind of inspection robot is the mechanical guard in the substation.

Now, empowered by 5G, workers only need to click on the computer, and the inspection robot in the substation can start working freely in an instant. It is seen moving slowly along the set trajectory, with the head camera rotating from time to time to identify and read the switches, pressure plates, indicator lights, instruments, etc. on the equipment. The high-definition video image information is sent back to the command center. The time required is as low as 1 millisecond, so fast that it is "insensitive". The efficiency of power grid equipment inspection can be improved by 270%.

　　“5G+UHV” promotes power grid transformation and upgrading

On June 2, 2020, at the construction site of the southern Henan converter substation of the Qinghai-Henan ± 800 kV UHV DC project (referred to as the "Qingyu DC" project), a 5G intelligent robot equipped with a VR holographic camera, an infrared thermal imaging camera and a 4K visible light camera automatically inspected on a specific route. When encountering obstacles ahead, it can also achieve automatic obstacle avoidance with ultrasonic waves.

This is an application scenario of 5G technology at the construction site of southern Henan converter substation, the site of the "Qingyu DC" project. It is also the first time that 5G technology has been applied to an ultra-high voltage infrastructure site in the province. It fully considers the needs of early construction and later operation, and synchronizes the smart infrastructure construction site with the later intelligent converter station.

The "Qingyu DC" project is my country's first ultra-high voltage channel built specifically for the transmission of clean energy. As the highlight of "new infrastructure", the application of 5G technology in the converter substation in southern Henan reflects the combination of new infrastructure and projects, the combination of substation resources and social resources, the combination of energy revolution and digital revolution, and is of great strategic significance.