Capacity of Overhead Medium Voltage Power Line Communication Channels

This paper considers broadband transmission via the overhead medium voltage (MV) grid. The MV broadband over power lines (MV/BPL) channels considered are three-phase overhead MV lines above lossy plane ground. To determine the end-to-end transfer function of any MV/BPL configuration the scattering matrix method is adopted. Various topologies of MV/BPL transmission channels have been studied with regard to their end-to-end signal attenuation and capacity. The analysis and relevant simulations reveal that broadband transmission via MV power lines depends drastically on the MV grid topology and the power constraints imposed to suppress electromagnetic interference to other services. A modification to the fixed spectrum allocation/all-protection model to regulate BPL emission is proposed employing power masks adaptive to locally existing wireless services.