China Telecom, China’s State Grid and Huawei have jointly released a report that details the results of their national 5G network slicing project, which was first announced last September.
TheNewsGuru gathers the report sets out the challenges encountered during smart grid development, potential application scenarios of 5G network slicing in smart grids, and analysis of the overall concept.
It could be recalled that China has heavily invested in the “Made in China 2025” government mandated economic strategy; and a truly smart grid powered by 5G fits very nicely into this model, giving Artificial Intelligence (AI) a filled day.
AI can enhance the predictability of demand and supply for renewables across a distributed grid, improve energy storage, efficiency and load management, assist in the integration and reliability of renewables and enable dynamic pricing and trading, creating market incentives.
“We hope that the three parties can fully leverage the resources from the national major project and the 5G pilot resources of China Telecom to promote joint innovation and build an end-to-end 5G ecosystem,” a spokesperson for China Telecom commented.
“The release of this report is a landmark of the substantial cooperation between operators and vertical industries in the 5G application field. Our next move is to further verify the 5G network slicing capabilities in power grid service instances and make network slicing easier to use through closer partnerships with State Grid and Huawei,” the spokesperson further stated.
According to the report, 5G network slicing technologies will enable the intelligent operation of the power grid, with the 5G core network providing network slices with differentiated capabilities to fulfil the requirements of new services in specific scenarios.
Network slicing should also enable grid utilities to control and manage network resources visually in the entire process, which the report calculates will significantly decrease the 5G network slice deployment cost and promote application innovation for a smarter grid.
“The energy industry is experiencing a radical change. Research on 5G network slicing for power grid are based on new power grid operation and service modes to meet the emerging service requirements.
“We are seeking a real-time, highly reliable, and efficient communication network to enable smart grid operations, intelligent power grid enterprises, and convenient electricity utilization,” said Wei Lei of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power.