What does this mean for the satellite industry? According to Pike Research, satellite’s geographic reach makes it suitable choice for AMI backhaul and Distribution Automation (DA) deployments, which represent what it believes are the most ubiquitous smart grid applications across a utility’s service territory.

   In the study, which was commissioned by iDirect, Pike Research’s Chief Research Director Bob Gohn said that there are multiple areas where IP-based satellite technology offers strong differentiation in geographic reach, performance, reliability, and security.

   “With a roundtrip latency of 600 milliseconds, satellite connectivity offers a viable solution for the majority of AMI and DA applications and compares favorably with mesh technologies used within the smart grid,” Gohn said in the report. “Newer satellite technologies such as the Digital Video Broadcasting Standard (DVB-S2), adaptive coding and modulation (ACM), and advanced forward error correction schemes enable highly reliable communications in all kinds of weather. Private satellite networks offer robust security benefits, including advanced encryption and authentication, alleviating concerns often associated with public cellular networks.”

   The focus of the report was to examine the growth of smart meter backhaul communications and how satellite has evolved to meet the challenges of the smart grid energy sector.

“As they build out the Smart Grid, utilities are increasingly turning to satellite technology to meet a wide range of communications applications, from SCADA monitoring to smart meter backhaul,” iDirect Spokeswoman Toni Lee Rudnicki said in a statement.

   Gohn believes satellite has become more cost-effective with recent technology innovations that optimize the use of bandwidth and provide higher speed connectivity to meet the growing data demands of the energy and utility market. “Thanks to advances in satellite technology, as well as reduced pricing for both the equipment as well as monthly service, satellite communications has emerged as a viable and attractive means of connectivity for many smart grid applications, particularly smart meter backhaul,” said Gohn. “This information will be especially helpful for utility network designers as they work to maintain coverage across the entirety of their service territory without sacrificing performance.”