Nokia has won a contract to deliver an optical transport network (OTN) to the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), covering the SGCC’s power grid operations in Beijing and Tianjin. The deal will see the SGCC achieve 100Gbps speeds in its transport network, up from 10Gbps today.
SGCC provides power to 1.1 billion people in 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China. The OTN upgrade will provide increased bandwidth capacity and a pathway to deliver smart grid services in the future, it said.
The deal, by Nokia’s Chinese subsidiary, Nokia Shanghai Bell, follows parallel work to deploy an optical network, serving 100 million people, for SGCC Jibei.
The new transport network, based on Nokia’s PSE chipset, features Nokia’s 1830 PSS-32 platform at its heart. Nokia’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) portfolio comprises platforms optimised for varying optical network deployments, ranging from interconnecting data centers to scaling large optical networks, said Nokia.
The platform provides network control and restoration via distributed GMPLS and centralised SDN control options. SGCC will be able to deliver high availability services rapidly, with reduced network operating costs and extended network lifecycles, according to Nokia.
Zhang Huijian, vice-general manager of SGCC Tianjin, said: “The new OTN network can provide better technology support for communications, deliver higher level of security and reliability for the power grid, and raise operational efficiency, while improving the business environment to help us deliver better services to our customers.”
Jin Jian, executive vice president at Nokia Shanghai Bell, said: “The new network will not only meet its capacity needs but will also improve efficiency and support a wide range of technologies that will be required as it make its electrical grid smarter.”
Nokia is diversifying into a number of industrial markets; the energy sector is a primary focus. Last week, it announced a deal to link its ‘energy innovation centre’ in Plano, Texas, with the University of Strathclyde’s power systems lab in Glasgow, Scotland, to create a transatlantic test lab for utilities to experiment with power grid automation, monitoring and control.
The joint facility will allow energy utilities, anywhere, to evaluate new applications on a ‘real-world’ network without putting power supplies at risk, said Nokia.
