This document discusses a satellite-based metering architecture developed by SES Broadband Services to improve renewable energy production forecasts on large power grids. The system uses smart nodes with embedded software at points of acquisition to interface with local production metering devices and SCADA systems. Data is sent via satellite connectivity to a central application server. The solution was implemented for Gestore dei Servizi Energetici, the Italian agency responsible for renewable energy, to monitor over 335,000 renewable energy plants across Italy.

1. A Satellite-based Metering
Architecture to improve Renewable
Energy Production Forecasts on
Large Scale Power Grids
SES Broadband
Antonio Bove – Senior Manager, Products & Marketing
EUTC Conference - Warsaw, October 25th 2012

2. ▲SES – Who we are
 A world-leading telecommunications
satellite operator
 Premier provider of transmission
capacity, related platforms and
services worldwide for
• media
• enterprise and telcos
• government and institutions

3. Adelaide
Perth
Singapore
Hong Kong
Middle East
Nemea
Kiev
Riga
Stockholm
London
Betzdorf
Munich
Washington DCLos Angeles
Brewster
Hawaii
Satellite fleet today
Fleet configuration is based on current planning and is subject to change.
SES holds 70% interest in Ciel Satellite Limited Partnership.
Yahsat 1A’s Ku-band payload is owned by YahLive, an SES affiliate.
March 2012
To be relocatedExpected orbital
position
InclinedHeadquarters Teleport (owned and
partner teleports)

4. Improving our service by expanding
our regional teams
One platform, global reach
▲ Global fleet of 52 satellites provides
comprehensive coverage
▲ Coverage for 99% of the world’s
population
▲ A well-connected teleport infrastructure
▲ Leading direct-to-home (DTH)
satellite operator in Europe
▲ Major supplier to cable
head-ends in the Americas
▲ Hosts some of the fastest-growing DTH
platforms in emerging markets

5. 5
 Successful commercial launch and roll-out in
Europe as of April 1st 2007
100% coverage in Europe - enables high-
speed Internet access regardless of
geographical location
 By today residential service distributed over
EMEA towards more than 80,000 end-users
Designed to complement terrestrial
broadband services, especially in those areas
where DSL, cable services or 3G / Wimax may
be limited or non-existent
 With extensive know-how in the residential
market, we developed the service further to
offer customers from the energy, security and
transportation industries an attractive and cost-
efficient possibility to implement their SCADA
applications.
Operates Europe’s largest satellite-
based residential broadband service:
formerly ASTRA2Connect
About SES Broadband Services

6. 6
SES
Utility
System IntegratorDistributor/
System Integrator
• Service Provisioning &
delivery
• Wholesale Billing
•2nd level customer support
SES Broadband
ServicesGround-system
supplier
Platform
specification &
procurement
Terminal supply /
procurement
• Provides End-Customer services
and on site support
• Provisions Satellite Service &
Capacity
• Sources CPEs
• Manages CPE distribution & RMA
• Manufactures the CPEs
• Delivers CPE to Wholesale
• Delivers BB Hubs to SBBS
Maintenance
and support
• Delivers satellite BB services and
capacity to ISPs
• Operates the SES Broadband
satellite service delivery platform
• Owns and manages the ground-
segment vendor relationship
• Provides satellite capacity and
teleport facilities
Wholesale business model

7. EMEA Service coverage
Ku/Ka-bands
7

8. Evolving Power Supply Infrastructure
Example: Numbers from 1 of 12 UK
Electrical Distribution Companies
Additional terminals making
discrete measurements
Distributed generation
connections
Some SCADA, but higher
data rates needed ~64Kb/s
Status well measured
& known
Generation
Transmission
End customers
Current limit
of SCADA
Future limit
of SCADA
Smart metering –
additional opportunity
Very little reporting now –
Transition from 3%-10%
needed initially
200
Links from 240 kV to 11kV
are key for distributed
generation inputs
275 /
400 kV350
200
100
50,000
2,500,000
Distribution
Distribution
Distribution (low level substation)
Substation
Smartmeters
533 kV
2132 kV
50011 kV
400 / 240 V 250 000
8
Power grids evolving from one-way energy flow model towards multi-way flows model

9. New Monitoring Paradigms
9
Operational communications/SCADA applications
 Wide deployment of communications to enable grid
automation, on-line services, active operation, demand
response and demand side management (EU)
 Growth in the use of IP – flexible approach, but:
• Need for data prioritization/quality of service to maintain
availability
• Need for data security
 Increased bandwidth requirements
• Expanding beyond original SCADA constraints
• Some new applications in imaging and video
Corporate communications
 Wider use of SCADA data within corporate applications
• Greater integration and linkage with SCADA in some
cases, subject to security concerns
 Optimizing productivity and business reporting
 Field personnel support
• Corporate access in remote locations
• Emergency voice – VoIP applications
Higher Bandwidth Examples
Remote Video Monitoring and Security
Monitoring and Control of Vital Processes
Video Surveillance
Industrial Generation Management (GMS)
Utility Energy Management (EMS)
Lower Bandwidth Examples
Asset monitoring
Fault Isolation
Demand Monitoring
Control of re-closure switches
Load Monitoring
Wind Farm Monitoring and Control

10. Telecoms infrastructure in rural areas:
urban legends and laws of physics
▲What is the European broadband coverage today?
• In 2011 connected European homes are still only 60% of total households1)
• Current broadband delivery technologies at their maximum capabilities could reach 90% of all households in
Europe
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
xDSL Cable
Internet
FTTH/B Total
Connected Homes Technology reach
Europe's broadband homes connected and passed per
infrastructure technology in 2011 vs. Technology reach
Sources: Dataxis, EU Commission, Screen Digest
60%
40%
Broadband penetration
Connected homes Not-Connected homes
% of connected homes, total HHs 306 Mio, 2011 EoY –
Sources: Dataxis, EU Commission, Screen Digest
1) Including Turkey and European CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus)
10

11. LTE’s missing promises for rural areas Prediction: mass scale FTTH will fall apart
Telecoms infrastructure in rural areas:
urban legends and laws of physics
• Due to technical and economical reasons the roll out
of LTE technology to address the last 10-20% of
European population is not evolving as planned
• European Telco’s have heavily invested to acquire
3G spectrum nevertheless the additional CAPEX
required to provide last mile connectivity make the
business case in low populated areas not
sustainable
• In spite of marketed performances of LTE
technology, being able to provide 50 Mbit/s, the real
user experience is still a linear function of the
distance from the LTE’ base station
• As for all shared mediums the more the users are
connected to a given base station the lower is the
experienced download speed and ultimately the end-
user experience
 FTTH deployment on a large scale is a timely and costly
exercise and is far from being achieved
 The 100 Mbit/s symmetric services for the mass market
will have difficulty to get a fair market penetration at given
price targets
 Out of the 27.9 million households connected to fibre by
the end of 2011 in EU35, only 5.15 million have actually
subscribed to the fibre-connectivity services
 Most of the European population seems to be satisfied
with the average broadband speed it currently gets, and
is controlling its recurring personal expenses in the
present time of economic crisis
 Even in the countries with high FTTH penetration,
average traffic volumes did not increase dramatically and
traffic patterns have remained stable (relatively high
asymmetry between forward and return speeds)
11

12. The UK Case –
Coverage Limitations (Ofcom 2011)
12
9596
80
74
96
9390
84
9696
84
75
97
9492
85
9897
60
91
89
86
78
9899
67
72
89
92
8578 85
92
7475
95
93
87
83
RuralUrbanRuralUrbanRuralUrban RuralUrban
68
Scotland WalesUK Northern IslandEngland
Fixed
telephony
Mobile
telephony Broadband
Digital
television
Platform UK 2010 UK 2009 UK change England Scotland Wales N Ireland
Fixed line 100% 100% 0pp 100% 100% 100% 100%
2G mobile1) 96% – n/a 99% 85% 84% 87%
3G mobile2) 95% – n/a 99% 84% 82% 54%
Cable broadband3) 48% 48% 0pp 51% 37% 23% 30%
LLU4) 89% 85% 4pp 91% 81% 84% 75%
FTTC5) 23% – – 23% 8% 14% 81%

13. GSE case story
13
▲ Monitoring Renewable Energy Source
(> 100 KW) production sites across Italy
• Customer: GSE (Gestore dei Servizi Elettrici)
• Company owned by the Italian Ministry of
Economy and Finance
▲ Promoting and supporting renewable energy
sources (RES) in Italy
▲ Monitoring:
• Wind
• Hydroelectric
• Photovoltaic
• Biomass
▲ Benefits for GSE and the Italian energy market:
• Optimizing predictions of Renewable Energy
production
• Improve electricity procurement process
▲ Statistical data (YE 2011)
• 335.000 RES plants
• 41TW production

14. Advantages of the solution:
 Optimization of cost/benefit ratios
 High flexibility in terms of architecture
 High scalability in relation to type of
supported applications or number of
sites connected
 Extreme reliability
 Complete outsourcing of data transfer
service
14
GSE case story
 Independence of the geographical
location of the sites
 Speed of installation
 Homogeneity in terms of equipment
and management
 Tailored design for PoA

15. Point of Acquisition (PoA)
▲ From a physical point of view, a PoA is
made of a few basic element
• a VSAT terminal: i.e. a small bi-
directional antenna system and
satellite modem which provides the
IP level connectivity to the network;
• A smart device able to interface the
target monitored system;
• Other IP devices such as a video-
surveillance IP camera or other IP
based data sources.
• POAs implementation is itself based
on the smart node concept
15

16. PoA: SCADA gateway
▲ Composed of a small computer board, a
Linux based box equipped with LAN and
serial interfaces, acts as data gateway
from the local SCADA or datalogger systems
to the central application server,
▲ Each POA provides the level of
abstraction to interface the local
SCADA systems or local metering
devices and represents the source of the
data flow from the remote sites
▲ Embedded Firmware for GSE
Application
▲ Aggregation nodes. Normally there is a
1:1 ratio between a Smart Node and a target
monitored system. In some cases, Smart
Nodes can act as an aggregation node in a
way that more targets can be acquired at the
same time
16

17. PoA: Meter gateway
▲ Integrates, a small IEEE 802.15.4
(Zigbee) wireless network connecting one
or more production meter
▲ Each meter may be interfaced through
existing standard pulse interfaces as
well analog or digital sensors to acquire data
which are sent to a coordinator node proving
the IP level interface to the network’s edge
▲ Embedded Firmware for GSE
Application
▲ TX module: meter
▲ RX module: Modem sat + interface with
GSEApplication Server
17

18. Data flow
▲ Simply taking IP level connectivity to
existing local systems on the power
plants and trying to query or control the
targets from a central application, is not
a scalable solution for emerging multi-
flow grids made of a continuously
growing number of production
nodes
▲ Efficient acquisition of data and
control across the network from each
isolated point is a growing requirement
from utilities and power industry
▲ Newer systems are equipped with
smarter embedded technologies with
two ways communications but low
computational power and suffer from
the variety of existing of protocol
standards which results in a puzzled
field, difficult to integrate
18
Centrale Elettrica di Nove (TV)
Fully operational since 1935

19. Smart nodes
▲Polling techniques would fail as the network dimensions reach volumes not
manageable from a timing point of view
▲ Its key to move moving part of the intelligence on the remote site by adding a
smart mid-tier layer able to interface target data source both from an electrical and an
application protocol point of view
▲ By providing enough computational power through increasingly smaller and efficient
industrial boards, a large number of existing systems, can be acquired in a uniform
manner based on the standard IP protocol. Even extracting data form legacy system
may be possible by IP enabling old devices by means of an externally attached equipment
▲ Smart nodes are completely autonomous to collect data by means of embedded
software plug-ins which provide the necessary interface to the specific target
production system. Each software plug-in driver enable the smart unit to a specific
protocol
▲ Being independent, every node can survive to temporary lack of connectivity so that data
loss can be avoided effectively: this is achieved by embedding a “store and forward”
policy in the local logic
19

20. Parties involved
▲ “Gestore dei Servizi Energetici” (GSE):
Italian governmental agency
responsible for the development and
integration of renewable resources,
their promotion through consistent
policies, the management of auction
processes related to the energy market
and, among others, the provision of
economic incentives (such as feed-in
tariffs) to developers and energy
producers
▲ Consortium:
• Digitaria - Prime contractor
• SES
• Calzavara
20

21. What’s next?
Talk to us

22. Thank you!
SES Broadband Services
Chateau de Betzdorf
L-6815 Luxembourg
Tel. +352 710 725 319
Mobile +49 151 5262 3900
antonio.bove@ses.com
www.ses.com/broadband-services
www.ses-broadband.com