Power System Engineering - Mission Critical Communication Networks

SCADA, Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI), Outage Management System (OMS), WFMS, Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) and Distribution Automation (DA) are just a few of the key mission critical applications that utilities rely on for their daily operations. The most reliable and cost effective communications transport for these systems is usually over a network, whether it be over fiber optic cable, microwave, Ethernet radio, Ethernet copper wire or a combination. Mission critical applications tend to require high availability, fault tolerant networks, which most of the traditional back office networks seem to lack.

Today’s mission critical system networks must be designed to withstand unfavorable and sometimes harsh conditions while providing continuous service whether they are caused by natural disasters, electromagnetic interference or by other reasons beyond the control of personnel. Poorly designed communication networks have often proven to be the primary point of attack for intruders to gain access into these mission critical networks and thereby compromising the utility’s business integrity.

Experts at PSE have researched and implemented high availability networks and are familiar with strategies and techniques that can help prevent a loss of service under many such circumstances. Let PSE help you to develop or enhance your network with an approach that will proactively implement measures to protect your infrastructure and mission critical systems from all these unplanned events.

Utilities are faced with making informed decisions such as whether to lease or own the communication network, choosing the right technology, how to implement a plan, and deciding on what equipment to buy. PSE can assist you in each step of this process by preparing tables, charts and simplified technical reports so that you have a clear idea about all the options and their associated costs in making an informed decision. Because PSE works with many utilities, communication equipment vendors, and service providers, we are constantly updating and maintaining a knowledge base of the latest industry trends, solutions and associated performance benchmarks. This allows us to leverage this knowledge to your advantage.

PSE will assess your situation and help you define your needs. Then we will work with you to develop a plan to provide you with the best solution possible, given the environment and constraints at hand. If you desire, we can provide you with a turn-key solution that begins by starting from a requirements definition stage and proceeding all the way to the hands-on network installation and commissioning services. PSE has successfully helped many utilities deploy mission critical networks.

Some of our key differentiators include:

Expertise in mission critical network design and integration.
Expertise in electromagnetic interference resistant solutions.
Expertise in fault tolerant and redundant solutions.
IP security assessment and proven security solutions.
Communications solutions for Smart Grid applications.
Highly skilled project management and development resources.
Access to leading and emerging technologies.
Integration of legacy devices through ruggedized serial servers.
Communications lab for benchmarking equipment.
Proven solutions deployed throughout North America.