Events

Power Line Communications and the Smart Grid

Lecture / Panel
 
For NYU Community

Speaker: Dr. Stefano Galli

Faculty Host: Professor Elza Erkip

Abstract

Is Power Line Communications (PLCs) a good candidate for Smart Grid applications?  The goal of this talk is to address this important question. To do so we provide an overview of what PLC can deliver today and we then describe the application scenario of PLCs within the Smart Grid. Since a necessary ingredient of network planning is modeling, we also discuss modeling PLC communications channels through fading models. Finally, we reports recent results on the electrical and topological properties of a sample power distribution network - an important topic as the power grid becomes the information delivery system when PLCs are used.

About the Speaker

Stefano Galli received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rome ``La Sapienza'' (Italy) in 1994 and 1998, respectively. He is a Director in the Strategic R&D Planning Office of Panasonic where he works in the area of communications and energy management. Prior to this position, he was a Teaching Assistant in Signal and Systems at the Info-Com Dpt. of the University of Rome from 1996 to 1998, and a Senior Scientist in Bellcore from 1998 to 2006.

Dr. Galli is involved in a variety of capacities in Smart Grid activities. He serves as Co-Chair of the ``Communications Technology'' Task Force of the IEEE P2030 Smart Grid Interoperability Standard, Chair of the PAP-15 PLC-Coexistence subgroup instituted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Smart Grid Communications Ad-Hoc Committee, and as Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. He also currently serves as an elected Member of the ComSoc Board of Governors, as a member of the Energy and Policy Committee of IEEE-USA, as an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications, and he is the past Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Power Line Communications (2004-2010).

Dr. Galli has worked on multiple wireless/wired communication technologies and is now focusing on power line communications and Smart Grid communications. He is an IEEE Senior Member, holds fourteen issued and pending patents, has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers, has submitted tens of standards contributions, and has received the 2010 IEEE ISPLC Best Paper Award.