Designing Broadband over Power Lines Networks Using the Techno-Economic Pedagogical (TEP) Method – Part I: Overhead High Voltage Networks and Their Capacity Characteristics

This pair of papers proposes the techno-economic pedagogical (TEP) method that is suitable for designing Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) networks in transmission and distribution power grids. During the presentation of TEP method, a review of the recent research efforts concerning BPL networks across transmission and distribution power grids is given. In this first paper, TEP method demonstrates to undergraduate electrical and computer engineering (ECE) students the interaction between two apparently irrelevant fields of their ECE program: Microwave Engineering and Engineering Economics. On the basis of a set of linear simplifications and suitable techno-economic metrics concerning transmission and capacity properties of overhead High Voltage Broadband over Power Lines (HV/BPL) networks, TEP method reveals the broadband potential of overhead HV/BPL networks to ECE students when different overhead HV/BPL topologies, electromagnetic interference (EMI) regulations and noise conditions are considered.