European alliance supports G3-PLC implementation

A total of twelve major players in the European smart grid industry formed a global partnership that aims to push for the implementation of a new power-line-communications (PLC) standard—the G3-PLC.

The partnership, which was announced at the Metering Europe Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, includes Enexis, ERDF, Maxim Integrated Products, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Cisco, Itron, Landis & Gyr, Nexans, Sagemcom, EDF R&D and Trialog.

G3-PLC uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The alliance was formed to support G3-PLC's rapid adoption by utilities worldwide in various smart grid applications such as automatic meter management, EV charging, home energy management, lighting control, and grid monitoring. The end game is to reduce energy consumption, but the tactical aims of the alliance are as follows: promote G3-PLC in internationally recognized standards organizations; organize and operate the industry users group to maintain the specification and to insure interoperability; and support utilities in the deployment of the new communications protocol in their respective countries.

G3-PLC operates in 10 to 490kHz frequency bands and is compliant with CENELEC, FCC and ARIB requirements.