HomePlug Powerline Alliance's influence in the emerging smart grid arena continues to grow as the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) gave its thumbs up for the HomePlug's Green PHY (GP) as a sound protocol for smart grid applications.
What's compelling about this designation for the powerline community is that AHAM member's presence is far reaching. To date, AHAM's members produce over 95 percent of the appliances sold in the U.S. alone.
The AHAM recently commissioned a study of to see what communications protocols are the most suitable for connecting appliances to the Smart Grid.
Focusing on communications protocols selected in the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid interoperability standard release 1.0 and candidate protocols recommended by AHAM, the study scored each protocol in 21 categories such as interoperability, cost to install and operate, performance, ease of operation and use, security and others.
The study evaluated each protocol at the application, network and media layers. Leading the application layer pack was ZigBee Smart Energy Profile (SEP) 2.0 and OpenADR, while HomePlug GP, Wi-Fi and ZigBee scoring highest at the Network, MAC and PHY layers.
Not only does ZigBee's SEP 2.0 applications run over HomePlug, WiFi and ZigBee networks, but the HomePlug Powerline Alliance has formed liaisons with the Wi-Fi Alliance and ZigBee Alliance to help facilitate interoperability between devices which operate on HomePlug, WiFi and ZigBee networks using SEP 2.0 application protocols.
For more:
- see the release
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