Experience of communication problems in PLC-based AMR systems in Finland

According to Finnish legislation, at least 80% of the energy meters had to be remotely readable and provide hourly based data by the end of 2013. The expansion of AMR system has certainly set higher demand for the reliability of the communication link when hundreds of meters establish communication link with data concentrator. This paper discusses the architecture of different Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems and gives some insight to the level of conducted disturbances which may cause PLC communication problems in commonly used AMR systems. It also proposes potential solutions to overcome the PLC communication problems. On-site measurements have been carried out to study the behavior of different system in real networks with various electronic loads. The results indicate that large number of PLC links failed to operate in the field due to the high frequency noise generated by electronic loads at frequencies close to the PLC carrier frequency. The presence of high frequency disturbances in the PLC frequency range caused by customer loads obstructed the communication of AMR systems which is a matter of concern for DNOs.