Research On Application Of OTN Technology In Power Communication Network

Along with the notable progress made in the smart grid construction, the electric power communication services have shown the characteristics of being IP-based and high broadband. In the current power communication network, there has seen a so rapid increase in the demand of business bandwidth and other services’types that the current system is no longer able to meet the public demand. Therefore, the introduction of OTN technology is essential in the way that it provides greater power communication capacity, functions more efficiently and provides more reliable support.Besides, the introduction of OTN technology that owns optical and electrical layers cross-connect capability can promote evolution of the traditional system into a ring and mesh network structure. However, the direct transformation of the existing protection networks that have the chain and ring structure into the mesh will lead to a waste of resources, and cause problems in planning and protection. Therefore, it is necessary to study new suitable ways to protect OTN mesh networks. P-cycle protection is the protection way in mesh networks which helps achieve high resource utilization.The paper focuses on elaborating the development of OTN technology, its standards and equipment, as well as the problems OTN network protection will face. It also evaluates the structure of the smart grid information and communication and analyzes the problems existing in several types of power communication technology and smart grid communications network, in order to sum up the advantages of OTN and the necessity of its application. Based on the principle of OTN technology, the paper intends to give recommendations on OTN applications in power communication network. It stresses on the realization of OTN networks’P-cycle protection scheme, and compares it with other commonly used methods. Finally, by drawing references from "Anhui Power backbone fiber-optic communications network upgrade project," the paper analyzes the practical application of OTN and how the P-cycle protection scheme get implemented.