AltaLink – Smart Communications for the Smart Grid

Calgary-based AltaLink is Canada’s only fullyindependent transmission company operatingapproximately 12,000 km of transmissionlines that serve 85 percent of Alberta’s population.

In 2010, Altalink launched an IP/MPLS upgradeto its entire distribution and communications infrastructure.

Altalink expands communication

AltaLink’s decision to upgrade its operational communicationsnetwork was originally triggered by theobsolescence of the ATM and TDM solutions, accordingto Clint Struth, AltaLink’s Principal Engineerfor Telecommunications and Networking. There areother factors though which bolstered the case forchange.“We also had a need for more IP- asedservices and, because our division is practically aninternal service provider to the various businessunits that use the network, we had decided thatwe wanted to implement a carrier-like model withcentralized management and provisioning,” saysStruth.

Other challenges included greater regulatory requirements,placing more emphasis on AltaLink’sability to provision, manage and operate criticalservices while reporting actual operating statistics,and the necessity to adhere to reliability benchmarksfor Teleprotection (TPR), SCADA, or other services.Additionally, the company needed to maintain theservices running on its legacy network and ensurecybersecurity during the transition.

“Contrasting the competitor offerings for IP/MPLS, Alcatel-Lucent is the only company that has abroad suite of those legacy interfaces,” says Struth,so when you’re trying to bridge the gap betweenold network and new, the others simply can’t do it.”

“We knew through some of their commercial deploymentswith carriers that they had the technologyand skill set to back us up if we ran into trouble.In fact, Alcatel-Lucent has the capability to do a bitof everything, so we were very comfortable with usingthem as opposed to bringing in a new vendor.All of these considerations made our selection prettyeasy.”

Hand-in-hand with Alcatel-Lucent

Working closely with Alcatel-Lucent, AltaLink builta compliant and cost-effective Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) infrastructurewith a visually-oriented network managementsystem. With IP/MPLS, the available bandwidth isdistributed between services as and when needed,creating unprecedented efficiencies. IP/MPLS is alsothe only IP based solution capable of supporting thedemanding network requirements of today’s utilities.

For security, AltaLink employed a multi-tierscheme that makes full use of IP/MPLS intelligence,flexibility and control with intrusion- etectioncheckpoints; centralized authentication and logging;security policies for each service through accesscontrol lists; MAC-pinning, IP and bandwidthfilters; centrally-managed and monitored Fortinetfirewalls at every substation; low-latency teleprotectionand comprehensive password protection at different levels.

The full rollout began in January 2011, and nownearly 70 of its 300 substations have been converted,with a complete migration targeted for 2013.

Going to a carrier model means that AltaLink willbe able to eliminate duplication in services. “Ratherthan separate units for the IT and operations networksand SCADA, we’re going to have one centralizedteam,” says Struth. “That means no duplicationof manpower, with centralized managementprovisioning and reporting, standardized processesfor new services requests and other issues, standardizedengineering and design, as well as a commonhardware design, a common management modelfor security and control, and uniform policy.”

“And, we have a lot more visibility now than weever did before. It’s real-time monitoring – we knowfrom one common pane of glass what all of theservices are doing. If anything we have more confidencenow in the network than we did in the past.”

Cory Struth, Clint’s brother and AltaLink’s IP NetworkArchitect, points to the benefits of Alcatel-Lucent’s professional services during the rollout.“It lessened the learning curve for those of us whowere actually doing the implementation and gaveus someone to really mentor with, but also let us goand do it on our own. It probably saved us a year.”

What began as a maintenance upgrade drivenby sourcing concerns has developed into a transformationalchange for AltaLink’s communicationsand control network. By successfully engineeringthe network to support critical applications such asSCADA and TPR, this next-generation smart gridis fully addressing current needs and supportinglegacy assets while remaining flexible and ready forfurther smart grid enhancements in the future.