"All types of communication technologies will be used for communicating with electronics meters, that ensure all networks are secured enough to avoid hacking"

Challenges In Technology To Meet Enterprise Needs In 2013 And Expectations
Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd. (TPDDL) is a 51:49 Joint Venture of Tata Power Company  limited. Founded in 2002, the company distributes electricity in North & North Western part of Delhi. Within a span of 11 years, TPDDL reduced Aggregated Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses from 53 percent to appx. 11 percent. Over the last few years, TPDDL has steered the company to greater heights through business process re-engineering and IT(Information Technology) & OT (Operational Technology) adoption. Since business is heavily dependent on IT systems, information Security plays an important role.

In TPDDL more and more network devices (Routers / Switches) are getting installed at various locations and almost all operations is wholly dependent on availability of communication network. At TPDDL there are approximately 350 network devices that are installed, including DC routers at various grid substations.

In TPDDL, all commercial processes are automated to a large extent. However, to avoid visit to consumers site for collecting meter reading, monitoring the power consumption pattern of the consumers and to enable Distribution Company to connect/disconnect the power supply remotely, TPDDL is initiating implementation & installation of two way communicating electrical meters called AMI Meters, at consumer premises on a pilot basis initially. Depending upon the success of Pilot project, subsequently same model will be replicated for all consumers.

All types of communication technologies viz.wireless; GSM, GPRS, CDMA, Zig Bee, etc. will be used for communicating with AMI meters. This will throw new challenges to ensure that networks are secured enough to avoid any type of hacking.

The technology providers must work towards mitigating this challenge by designing a SECURE IP/MPLS infrastructure to defend against complex threats and malicious attacks, which continue to change in behavior and characteristics. Also autonomics in communication network to automatically monitor & maintain network behavior like bandwidth utilization, buffer usage, network latency, fake traffic out of hundreds of ports, etc., proactively identify and mitigate threats to key attributes, manage and then control it automatically will be of great help to enterprises.