Co-construction of power and 5G

On July 10, the 35-kV Gujia substation in Guzhenkou, Qingdao, started to operate the latest 5G base station, which provides cheap and stable power supply for local 5G devices. This is another win-win milestone of State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company and China Telecom Qingdao Branch.

State Grid Shandong Electric Power Information Communication Intelligent Control Center

In recent years, State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company has actively carried out research and exploration in 5G smart grid, focusing on building a 5G smart grid demonstration zone in Qingdao. Up to now, State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company, China Telecom Qingdao Company, and Huawei have deployed more than 30 5G base stations in Guzhenkou, Qingdao West Coast, Laoshan Jinjialing, and Olympic Sailing Center. 5G technologies are used to enable the transformation and upgrade of traditional power grids, effectively supports 5G smart grid applications. It has achieved good results in improving the quality of power supply services, improving the efficiency of power grid operation and inspection, and achieving co-construction and sharing.

The power consumption of 5G base stations is higher than that of 4G base stations, and the coverage area of 5G base stations is only one third of that of 4G base stations. If signals are required to cover the same area, the density of 5G base stations is higher than that of 4G base stations, and the network power consumption is several times that of 4G base stations. Therefore, how to save power for 5G base stations is also an important research topic of 5G smart grids.

The peak-clipping and valley-clipping power supplies store energy during off-peak hours and use the stored energy during peak hours to supply power to 5G base stations. It is estimated that a single base station will save 20% of the power consumption cost. This intelligent power supply solution for 5G base stations can save CNY13,800 in electricity fees per base station per year. The three major telecom operators in Qingdao are expected to build 14,000 5G base stations. If large-scale deployment is available in the future, huge economic and social benefits will be generated.

5G Helps Zero Perception of Line Faults

On July 13, two brand-new 10 kV power distribution cabinets were put into operation on Sansha Road, Guzhenkou, west coast of Qingdao. Zhang Tao, from the transportation and inspection department of Qingdao Power Supply Company, is checking device signals. "All these devices are configured with 5G power distribution line differential protection, so that faults on power distribution lines can be automatically removed within dozens of milliseconds. Users who are not in the fault area cannot even feel the fault. Compared with the previous failure on the whole line of power outages, the level of power supply services has been greatly improved.”

State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company Improves Power Supply Service Level with 5G Technology

The lack of proper communication means has always been a difficult problem that hinders the implementation of differential protection for distribution networks. In recent years, State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company has vigorously developed 5G communications technology application innovation and worked with China Telecom, Huawei, and Shandong University to develop differential protection devices for 5G distribution lines, deploy 5G slice networks, and deploy edge computing devices. These devices have been continuously improved in lab verification, field tests, and live network tests, reducing the unidirectional communication latency between protection devices to 8ms, the protection time to 50ms, making a major breakthrough in the distribution network protection field.

As a new-generation mobile communications technology, 5G not only greatly improves bandwidth, but also features ultra-low latency and massive connections, meeting requirements for large bandwidth, low latency, and wide connections in various smart grid service scenarios, such as video inspection, power distribution automation, and automatic meter reading. The combination of 5G, edge computing, network slicing, and other technologies will provide a secure and isolated dedicated network for power grids that have high data security requirements, and will certainly become an important driving force in the energy Internet construction process.

Source: State Grid Newspaper