Deployment Concepts for Overhead High Voltage Broadband over Power Lines Con- Nections with Two-hop Repeater System: Capacity Countermeasures against Aggra- Vated Topologies and High Noise Environ- Ments

This paper extends the existing transmission and capacity analysis in order to investigate the broadband potential of overhead high-voltage/broadband over power lines (HV/BPL) connections where a single repeater is additively deployed between their existing transmitting and receiving ends (overhead HV/BPL connections with two-hop repeater system). The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, the broadband performance of various overhead HV/BPL connections with two-hop repeater system has been studied with regard to their cumulative capacity. The analysis and relevant simulations validate the potentially excellent communications medium of overhead HV/BPL channels over a 25 km repeater span well beyond 88 MHz in terms of cumulative capacity. In addition, through the deployment of two-hop repeater systems, apart from the upsurge of cumulative capacity, overhead HV/BPL connections become more adaptive to different capacity requirements. Second, it is found that overhead HV/BPL network capacity performance depends drastically on factors such as the overhead HV grid topology and the noise characteristics. Through the deployment of two-hop repeater systems, capacity losses due to existing aggravated overhead HV/BPL topologies and high noise environments are significantly reduced. Third, the numerical results reveal the importance of considering as suitable mitigation technique the deployment of overhead HV/BPL connections with twohop repeater system. Except for the low-cost and quick technology upgrade of existing overhead HV/BPL networks, this mitigation Received 11 August 2012, Accepted 24 September 2012, Scheduled 29 September 2012 * Corresponding author: Athanasios G. Lazaropoulos ([email protected]).