Unlocking the Benefits of PLC: HiSilicon and Fcreate Energy Partner on Smart Street Lamps

[Shenzhen, China, June 23, 2020] Infrastructure has been a driving force behind China's rapid economic growth, especially in recent years. Notably, smart street lampposts have been widely recognized as key infrastructure that will be widely deployed.

In addition to high-tech sensors, there's yet another way to make street lamps smarter — wideband PLC single-lamp controllers, which function as the basic unit for urban road lighting, information acquisition, and management.

Data indicators suggest that the market for intelligent street lamp deployment in China remains 95% unfulfilled. HiSilicon has proposed the PLC-IoT concept and solution, with the goal of meeting this robust demand. If you're interested in the advantages offered by HiSilicon's PLC-IoT technology and its deployment in Fcreate Energy's smart lighting management system, read on.

What Makes PLC Ideal for Street Lamps?

The perfect communications technology is one that can be fully utilized in a specific context. PLC meets this definition, as it is far and away the best option for street lamps.

The reasons are as follows: PLC features exclusive channels to avoid noise. Unlike wireless communications, PLC signals are not attenuated by obstacles, and thus provide excellent stability and anti-interference performance. In addition, PLC allows for the reuse of the original power lines without any re-cabling. From a deployment standpoint, PLC is the most easy-to-use, practical, and cost-effective communications solution.

What Makes HiSilicon Wideband PLC-IoT So Outstanding?

1. High-speed transmission
The transmission rate of narrowband PLC ranges from 2 kbit/s to 24 kbit/s, while that of wideband PLC can reach 0.5 Mbit/s or higher. HiSilicon wideband PLC-IoT chipsets support 132-channel orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. Thanks to higher concurrency, transmission rates, and bandwidth, data transmission efficiency is increased up to 200 times.

2. Strong anti-interference
HiSilicon has a comprehensive noise library encompassing all types of power grid noise across the world, and providing matching suppression algorithms for the different types of noise. HiSilicon carrier chipsets collect power grid interference signals, and then automatically adopt the most suitable algorithms, boosting communications stability. HiSilicon's PLC-IoT modules can achieve an actual P2P communications range of 2400 m, greatly outperforming narrowband PLC (< 1000 m).
This breakthrough makes O&M much easier and reduces costs across the board.

How Fcreate Energy Harnesses HiSilicon PLC-IoT Chipsets
to Build its Smart Street Lamp Control System

Fcreate Energy's smart lighting system is built on a rather simple architecture. After the concentrators and single-lamp controllers are powered by the respective power distribution cabinet (PDC), the system automatically completes the networking process. There are no special requirements for power line specifications.

Each street lamp can be remotely monitored and managed via the single-lamp controller driven by HiSilicon PLC-IoT chipsets. This solution prolongs the lifespan of lamps, while also bolstering energy efficiency and security. Tests revealed that it only takes 2 seconds to turn on 55 street lamps equipped with HiSilicon PLC chipsets, with a success rate of 99.87% for the sending and receiving of 550,000 instructions.

Advantages

1. Premium lighting experience: 0%–100% stepless lightning control
2. Cable-free, technical support-free solution: Power line-enabled communications
3. Fast networking: 300 devices within a minute
4. Flexible settings for lighting policies: Grouping based on user requirements, longitude, latitude, and illuminance
5. Easy maintenance: Available shortly after being replaced, and automatic searches for new devices
6. Improved municipal management efficiency: Automatic inspection of faulty devices and error reporting
7. Increased city lighting rate: Identification of bulb faults within 1 minute and fuse faults within 5 minutes
8. Electricity safety: Real-time reporting of lamppost leakage over PLC
9. Energy saving: Lower energy consumption thanks to lightning controls

Case StudyInstallation Phase

The installation of narrowband PLC single-lamp controllers is a complex and labor-intensive process.
By contrast, wideband PLC single-lamp controllers enabled by HiSilicon chipsets reduce the need for human labor.

Operation and Maintenance Phase

With the smart PLC lighting management solution of Fcreate Energy, street lamp maintenance units are capable of receiving fault alarms down to the millisecond level by leveraging the advantage of high bandwidth, low delay, and low interference offered by HiSilicon PLC technology. This greatly improves the lightning rate and O&M efficiency.

Fcreate Energy utilizes HiSilicon wideband PLC-IoT technology to promote road lighting fueled by single-lamp controllers, while saving energy in the process, and facilitating smart lamppost construction. Fcreate Energy will continue to explore more outdoor lighting services, such as tunnel lighting and nightscape lighting.

[About Fcreate Energy] Xiamen Fcreate Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is committed to bridging the divide between smart, environmentally-friendly industries with traditional industries, and building a comprehensive smart lighting platform for cities, adhering to a vision of "Energy management focused, smart life oriented". It's involved in a range of areas, including product R&D and operations for the smart city, smart lighting, smart campus, smart municipality, smart energy, and industrial Internet fields. Fcreate Energy's reach spans numerous industries, including information, planning and design, research and consulting, hardware/software R&D, system integration, product R&D and sales, and O&M services. Fcreate Energy serves its customers with one-stop services, from top-level project planning and design to financing, project implementation and O&M, intelligent control system SaaS, and product supply chain management.