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PCN to Participate in Discussion Panel at CleanTECH San Diego Leadership Series

pcn_technology — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:25:51 +0000

Unlocking the Potential of Solar Power: A Conversation with Michael Peevey

Leaders at PCN Technology have been selected to participate to speak in a discussion panel on CleanTECH San Diego’s Leadership Series featuring Mike Peevey and his solar market views along with UCSD. Mr. Peevey, President of the California Public Utilities Commission, is a strong supporter of renewable energy and renewable procurement requirements for utilities, and is a leader in implementing California’s Solar and Greenhouse Gas Initiatives. He is widely regarded as a primary architect of California’s many world leading energy policies. We look forward to a frank and entertaining discussion regarding the challenges and necessity of meeting California’s aggressive renewable goals.

Michael R. Peevey was appointed President of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) by Governor Gray Davis on December 31, 2002, having been originally appointed to the CPUC by Governor Davis in March 2002. In December 2008 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reappointed Mr. Peevey to the CPUC for another six-year term.

From 1995 until 2000, Mr. Peevey was President of NewEnergy Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Peevey was President of Edison International and Southern California Edison Company, and a senior executive there beginning in 1984. Mr. Peevey has served on the boards of numerous corporations and non-profit organizations. Mr. Peevey has received many awards recognizing his leadership in developing energy policy and promoting recognition of California’s diverse population.

When: March 24, 2010

Where: Estancia La Jolla Hotel and Spa / La Jolla, CA

Time: 4:00pm-6:30pm

AESP’s 20th National Conference & Expo

pcn_technology — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:41:44 +0000

Association of Energy Services Professionals Conference & Expo

February 8-12, 2010

Tucson, AZ

http://aesp.org/

PCN Converts Installed Serial (SCADA) Networks into Fully IP Enabled Interoperable Ethernet-over-RS485 (IP-485) Solutions

pcn_technology — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:15:03 +0000

PCN Technology is now releasing its newest Grid MicroCircuits™ product. Based upon the company’s core open standards patented conductive media technology, this product delivers advanced IP Enabled (TCP/IP) Ethernet functionality on existing serial twisted pair RS-485 networks.

EC-3482A/B External Network Module (OEM Design-In Modules also available)

Operational Benefits of EC-3482:

1. The EC-3482 Grid MicroCircuits™ module multiplexes medium bandwidth Ethernet data simultaneously with the existing RS-485 serial data operations. These new modules allow continued use of legacy SCADA protocols without degradation of existing network signals or limiting system functionality.

2. With IP-485 technology, users can now expand and update existing legacy serial data buses using twisted pair networks and additionally transport Ethernet communication on the same twisted pair of wire. The modules minimize RS-485 latency and guarantee “no serial packet chunking” during the transport of RS-485 data. This technology guarantees contiguous RS-485 data packet and data bit integrity allowing usage for Modbus RTU and other timing critical serial network protocols. No more data tunneling artifacts or timing mishaps due to TCP/IP Serial Converter inefficiencies.

3. Existing twisted pair wiring within multi-drop RS-485 networks can now carry multiple-node communication signals simultaneously for legacy serial communication as well as Multi-Node Ethernet network communication. No additions of CAT5 cabling are required and full multi-drop support means that installations avoid adding bundles of Ethernet cables in conduit and wiring trays.

Applications include commercial industrial and energy installations where added TCP/IP functionality is needed or required. Existing SCADA functionality and embedded firmware applications can remain the same for the legacy equipment while adding new Ethernet Networking capabilities. The IP-485 solution provided by the EC-3482 is essentially a modulated carrier system that adds Ethernet router capabilities to existing twisted pair wires. Existing SCADA infrastructures no longer need to change or obsolete their serial twisted pair serial networks. IP485™ adds desirable IP Enabled functionality while minimizing the associated costs of new wire, connectors, switches and other TCP/IP infrastructure needs that are often cost or labor prohibitive.

“We are particularly happy with this latest product” comments Venkat Shastri, CEO. “Industrial and Commercial OEM customers that utilize SCADA networks and require both SCADA solutions and advanced TCP/IP solutions can now meet all of their needs on the same existing installed twisted pair infrastructure without additional CAT5 runs, converters or switches.”

EC3482A is available with an RS-485 (2-wire) interface plus a single Ethernet port. A Multi-Port Ethernet module is also available as EC3482B. Volume lead times are 12-16 weeks with EC3482A/B evaluation kits available now.

For more product information contact: daniel.drolet@pcntechnology.com

Visit PCN Website: www.pcntechnology.com

About PCN Technology, Inc.

San Diego based PCN is an embedded networking company that designs, develops and commercializes its novel Grid MicroCircuits™ technology. Its products meet the immediate needs of industrial & commercial OEMs as well as utilities while simultaneously providing a platform for Smart Grid evolution. Based on award winning patented technologies, PCN Grid MicroCircuits™ provide universal open standard repurposing of copper infrastructure for true embedded networked solutions.

Click here to read the full announcement in PDF.

Communication via Power Lines?

pcn_technology — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:47:49 +0000

(Reference: San Diego Union Tribune, Onell Soto)

A San Diego company says it has found a novel way to communicate through electricity lines, allowing it to transmit video to billboards, payment information to gas pumps and data about the operation of an electric grid to power companies without radio waves or additional wires.

If adopted broadly — the company notes that it’s just beginning to commercialize what it has developed — the technology could invisibly change the way factories are run, gas stations are built and power is distributed.

Technology to transmit data over electric lines has been around for decades, but with limitations. The oldest technology carries very little data for very short distances, so it’s useful primarily for turning lights on and off remotely.

Another technology, broadband over power line, was seen as a way to use the electric grid to connect to the Internet for customers who otherwise wouldn’t get it, but it was costly.

What PCN Technology developed is something in the middle, a way of getting a moderate amount of data across medium distances.

It won’t replace data networks many are now familiar with — cable television or broadband wireless connections — but it will work with them so that devices can better communicate with one another.

And because of the way it works, it can help collect and transmit the data needed to more efficiently make and distribute electricity through “smart grids.”

David Strumpf, PCN’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said the technology arose from his work in industrial communications — that is, how to get robots and other machinery in a factory to talk to each other and the computers that control them.

Using radio waves, which any wireless solution would require, was difficult because of interference from the motors in the machines. Standard communication cables were costly and unreliable.

Strumpf hit on using something all the machines had in common: the power cables they used for electricity. Now PCN, which has sold about 20,000 of its chips to manufacturers of other products, is looking at a variety of uses for its technology.

With a gas-pump maker, it’s testing the use of power lines to hook up data for video and credit card transactions at gas stations without tearing up the pavement. And because the data are in the power lines, they’re secure. They can’t be stolen out of the air by outsiders.

Billboards could be modified to display video messages, without having to run new cables. Railroads could use the technology to communicate up and down a train by sending the signals through the coaches and couplings.

But it’s the smart-grid applications that have attracted interest from green-minded investors.

In 2008, Rancho Bernardo-based PCN raised $6 million from Enertech Capital, a clean-energy venture fund, said Chief Executive Venkat Shastri. He is negotiating for additional rounds of funding.

The smart-grid benefits were a surprising side effect of the way PCN’s chips talk to one another, Shastri said.

The chips scan the activity on an electrical cable to figure out, hundreds of times a second, a quiet frequency on which to transmit data. When that frequency gets noisy, they find another one that works.

Shastri compared it to a cabbie in busy traffic, figuring out which lane will move him forward, then changing lanes when another opens up.

“We always find sweet spots,” he said. “We make decisions in real time about which frequencies to use, how to use them, how loud to talk, so we can get the data across in a very reliable way.”

The concept is familiar to those who know wireless communication, where the Qualcomm-developed technology CDMA, or code division multiple access, is used to transmit multiple conversations over the same bandwidth.

With power-line communication as PCN does it, however, there’s an added benefit. To figure out where to send the signals, the company’s chips have to work out what’s going on with the electricity in the wires.

“Basically, it’s an entire grid-analytics system,” said Daniel Drolet, one of the company’s founders.

And those data — about how much power is being used, its voltage and other qualities — are valuable to the people who run electric grids, said Katherine Hamilton, who heads the Gridwise Alliance, a utility industry group.

“This kind of information is critical,” she said. “This is what the smart grid is, knowing what’s going on in your equipment, what’s going on in your lines.”

Hamilton said she was unfamiliar with PCN, but that communications and monitoring are essential and that many companies are working on a variety of solutions.

“If you view the electric grid holistically and you take into account all these pieces of technology in the grid, the main component is the ability to communicate,” she said.

The term “smart grid” means different things to different people, but at its heart, the idea is to use computer technology to make the generation, transmission and use of electricity more efficient.

PCN says it is getting an early test of what its technology can do in Europe. It has set up a pilot program outside Warsaw, Poland, with a utility that serves about 5 million customers in the eastern half of the country.

PCN will provide smart meters and communications through power lines to about 120 customers in the next month. Other companies will provide the equipment and software to analyze the information.

“We are the only ones offering the power-line solution,” Shastri said.

Smart meters — devices with the ability to communicate to company headquarters and to users — are rolling out across the world as utilities are looking for ways to better track and predict power usage.

Many communicate using cell phone networks; others use radio waves or the power lines themselves.

The company’s technology will help utilities figure out when someone is stealing from them by illegally tapping into power lines, information they get today only with visual inspections.

PCN says its technology gives it an edge over other power-line communications systems — commonly known as BPL, or broadband over power line — in that it can push its data across transformers.

“If they have made an advance there, that’s meaningful,” said Rajesh Gupta, a professor in the computer science and engineering department at the University of California San Diego.

Gupta said transformers scramble data sent by other means. This roadblock could only be overcome with an expensive bypass, a communications cable connected to modules on each side of the transformer.

And that’s just one of the problems with trying to transmit data along the same wires where electricity flows, said Gupta, a smart-grid expert.

“Power line is an inherently noisy medium,” he said.

Shastri said noise — often defined as unwanted signals — helps PCN’s chips communicate and at the same time figure out what’s going on in an electrical circuit.

Grid MicroCircuits™ - Digital Grid Solutions for Creation of Smart Energy Infrastructure & Applications

pcn_technology — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:17:13 +0000

Grid MicroCircuits™ converge energy and communications within the utility, industrial, and commercial sectors. Grid MicroCircuits™ are open-standard products providing the Operating Systems Solutions for Communication, Networking and Energy Applications for Utility & OEM products and systems including:

- Network Control, Communication and Stabilization for Energy Infrastructure

- Renewable Generation Applications (e.g., solar inverters and wind farms);

- Meters, sensors, smart appliances & products;

- Transportation systems, Battery Intelligence, Charging and infrastructure; and

- Industrial products, building automation and control systems

Powered from a single 3.3V or 5V dc power supply and consuming less than 1 Watt of power on average, Grid MicroCircuits™ can be deployed in a power distribution system or other conductive media to communicate point to point, point to multi-point, or as a self-configuring mesh network. Programmed to be interoperable across multiple protocol standards, handling short and long packets, Grid MicroCircuits™ provide 128-256 bit AES encryption algorithm implemented internally, and are capable of supporting secure connections as well as application-specific transactions.

Each module is IP enabled and with its embedded interoperability software, is capable of bridging private networks to open standard public networks. In addition, products can be equipped with a bridge to Zigbee, RFID, Bluetooth or other 802.xx solutions. Communication is bi-directional and full duplex.

A configured system can support 60 redundant data paths with each data packet having a throughput of 250 Kb per 16 channels. In “Robust Mode,” Grid MicroCircuits™ obtain over 99.999% coverage at 19.2K, when set to 8 data bits; 1 stop bit and no parity. Grid MicroCircuits™ modules can be Flash programmed and all support SPI, 12C, USB, Ethernet, Parallel, RS-232, RS-485, CAN, Modbus, Serial UART and other interface standards. Data rate focus is for hundreds of Kbps over long distances, and up to 20Mbps streaming over short distances.

For more information, visit http://www.pcntechnology.com