China's smart grid market will enter a critical period in 2011

Mike Holt, vice president of marketing for Smitech, a power line communications solution provider, said that China's smart grid market will enter a critical period in 2011. Currently, Semitech has built more than 4,000 nodes in China. In the future, Semitech will further deepen the Chinese market.

China's smart grid market will enter a critical period, Mike Holt pointed out that the world, including the Chinese government, is strongly pushing for the development of smart grid technology, and that in the next 10 years, it is estimated that more than 1 million meters will need to be replaced every year. He predicted that China's smart grid market will enter a critical period in 2011.

In the process of smart grid evolution, the solution of power line communication will be more easily accepted. This is the most natural evolutionary method. For a long time, the high noise existing in the Chinese power grid has affected the development of power line communication, but the SM2200 that Semitech introduced The launch has solved this problem.

It is understood that applications for the SM2200 include advanced meter architecture and automatic meter reading systems, street light control systems, intelligent home power management, home automation, building automation, and other applications that require power line communication for deployment.

MikeHolt told reporters: "In the past two years, Semitech has built more than 4,000 nodes in China and collected a large amount of data, which is enough to prove that Semitech's solutions can adapt to China's national conditions."

It is understood that Semitech's biggest competitors are STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments, but the two major competitors have not yet developed products that can compete with the SM2200. The reason why such an advantage can be formed is that MikeHolt explained that competitors are not familiar with the actual conditions of China's domestic power grids. On the other hand, they are more concerned with FSC communication demodulation methods. This method is relatively easy, but the accuracy rate is low, and Semitech is The use of higher reliability means to ensure the stability of communications.

When talking about the issue of promotion in the Chinese market, MikeHolt pointed out that "Semitech chose to cooperate with EDOM Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., which has performed very well in the Asia-Pacific region, to the relevant manufacturers of smart grids in China, especially meter manufacturers, and automatic meter reading. The system manufacturers provide the SM2200 chip. Semitech has a very good product supply and after-sales service system. We hope that together with the aforementioned companies, we will seize the opportunity for the development of smart grid in China."

Solving High-Noise Problems with OFDM Technology Semitech is a semiconductor company focused on power line communication solutions that are transforming traditional grids into smart grids. Recently, Semitech has worked closely with China's domestic scientific research and industry community to develop the industry's first SM2200 based on OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) technology-based power line communications transceiver chip for the environment characteristics of China's power transmission and transformation network.

When talking about the development of smart grids, MikeHolt told reporters: “Although our electricity equipment is changing with each passing day, our power grid has not changed much from 100 years ago. Some experts say that today’s information and networking are In the world, the largest electrical appliance, the generator, drives the world's most extensive network in terms of energy, but it is almost isolated from information flow.”

MikeHolt believes that “connecting public electrical facilities is very important for a new generation of smart grids. In fact, the communication between smart grids is very difficult to achieve in the world, and each country’s power grid has its own characteristics. Semitech Pays great attention to the specific situation of the local power grid in order to propose more targeted products and solutions.”

Semitech and the Harbin Institute of Technology's power line communications experts in China jointly completed the development of the SM2200 chip project. MikeHolt believes that because of the high noise in China's power grid, it has been very difficult to achieve communication on the power line network. The OFDMA protocol in the SM2200 greatly improves the data throughput and system reliability of the communication system.

MikeHolt pointed out that "China's power grid has a large geographical area and there are differences between urban power grids and rural power grids. Due to serious noise and signal variations in various communications equipment and different communication standards, noise problems in China's power grids are particularly prominent. This is also related to The biggest difference is in other national grids."

In order to solve the noise interference in the Chinese power grid, Semitech integrated the OFDM technology in the SM2200, which not only solved the problem of adaptive adjustment of the speed but also enabled “frequency agility” to achieve highly stable and reliable communications. The SM2200 automatically selects the most efficient transmission frequency based on different noise environments. It also adopts MultiAccess architecture design to provide higher stability and realize multi-node concurrent communication, which brings more improvements to customers, including the highest communication throughput capacity and the most reliable communication availability.

"Using OFDM technology, Semitech has solved the high noise in China's power grid well and has brought better communication results to China's power grid," Mike Holt told reporters.