KunmingMay 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Against the backdrop of accelerated energy restructuring and deep integration of digital and intelligent technologies, the power grid is evolving from a “transmission network” into an “energy data network.”
As a key energy hub in southwestern China, Yunnan Power Grid shoulders the mission of large-scale clean energy transmission and smart grid construction. Yunnan’s complex terrain and lengthy transmission lines make its digital transformation all the more urgent. The surge in massive production data and the emergence of complex business scenarios are posing extremely stringent challenges to the underlying communication bearer network.
Yunnan Power Grid has partnered with Huawei to introduce SPN (Slicing Packet Network) technology, helping build a new-generation power communication bearer network. This collaboration not only breaks through the bottlenecks of the aging network but also injects strong momentum into “source-grid-load-storage” interaction and flexible regulation, lighting the way as a “lighthouse” for the digital transformation of the power sector.
The “Major Test” of Network Bearer Under Power Digital Transformation
The existing communication network foundation of Yunnan Power Grid was largely established around 2006, primarily based on traditional SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy). After nearly 20 years of operation, these devices have entered an aging phase: not only are hardware failure rates persistently high and spare parts facing supply risks, but more critically, the underlying architecture can no longer support the digital and intelligent transformation of power services.
Traditional low-speed, narrowband services are fully giving way to high-traffic, high-bandwidth intelligent applications:
- The widespread adoption of substation inspection robots and high-definition video monitoring, coupled with the explosive demand for monitoring in uninhabited areas along future transmission lines, has caused frequent lags when carrying these services on the original narrowband network, becoming a bottleneck constraining production efficiency.
- New distribution systems require high-frequency interaction between “source, grid, load, and storage,” and the power grid dispatch model is shifting toward flexible regulation. This demands not only a significant expansion of communication pipelines but also ultra-low latency, absolute reliability, and “rigid isolation” between services.
Facing this challenge, Yunnan Power Grid has identified SPN technology as the evolution path for the new-generation bearer network, incorporating it into the “14th Five-Year Plan” and “15th Five-Year Plan,” and gradually deploying it on a large scale across 16 prefectures and cities to build a communication foundation for the next 20 years. In this process, Huawei has become a key partner in this strategic upgrade.
SPN Builds a “Hardcore Pipeline” for the New-Generation Power Bearer Network
In 2022, Qujing Power Supply Bureau took the lead in piloting SPN with Huawei, replacing the aging A-network to carry video monitoring and transmission line inspection services, completing the first commercial test of the Constant Bit Rate (CBR) function of slicing packet network equipment nationwide.
The results showed that SPN equipment offers excellent network slicing isolation capabilities and high-precision CBR bearer capacity, enabling end-to-end timeslot isolation for small-bandwidth services on a large-bandwidth platform, effectively meeting the high reliability and low latency requirements of real-time control services in the power grid. This pilot marked the mature validation of SPN in power scenarios.
SPN is not merely a bandwidth upgrade; it combines the reliability of SDH with the flexibility of MPLS-TP, while achieving lower latency and more refined quality of service guarantees. Its key technologies include:
- Synchronous Packet Switching (SPS): Provides sub-millisecond or even nanosecond-level high-precision time synchronization, meeting the stringent requirements of power automation for high-precision timing, ensuring accuracy in data collection and command execution.
- Flexible Network Slicing: Leveraging FlexE hard slicing and soft slicing technologies, it divides a single physical network into multiple logical private networks. This enables physical isolation of critical production services while avoiding resource waste through dynamic allocation, significantly improving bandwidth utilization.
- Intelligent OAM Operations: Built-in operations, administration, and maintenance mechanisms support real-time monitoring of service SLA indicators such as latency and packet loss, with minute-level fault location and self-healing capabilities, significantly reducing operational complexity.
Dual Benefits: From Ultimate Experience to Long-Term Value
Since the pilot in 2022, SPN has gradually moved from a technical trial to a standard architecture across the province. With the successive delivery and deployment of SPN in Zhaotong, Pu’er, and other areas, the value of the new-generation bearer network is being fully realized:
First, the bandwidth bottleneck has been resolved. The SPN new-generation bearer network breaks the original capacity ceiling of 155M to 10G. Using SPN equipment, the bandwidth for access points such as substations, power supply stations, and business offices in the integrated data network has been upgraded to 1GB as per Southern Power Grid requirements. For aggregation and core layers, 50G or 100G is adopted based on site and service scale. It supports 10M small-granularity hard pipes, achieving end-to-end exclusive isolation for power private lines, adapting to high-bandwidth service needs like transmission video monitoring, and solving bandwidth bottlenecks while enabling smooth evolution.
Second, the bandwidth increase has significantly improved inspection and maintenance efficiency. Huawei’s SPN solution supports real-time monitoring of service SLAs (latency, packet loss rate, etc.), with minute-level fault location and demarcation, reducing maintenance costs associated with the high failure rates of traditional SDH. Taking Qujing Bureau as an example, single online inspection time has been reduced from 30 minutes to 3 minutes, and full inspection time from over 7 hours to 21 minutes; the operations center, through real-time monitoring of preset points, has identified major defects 15 days earlier; within six months, the number of on-site inspections decreased from 112 to 61, a reduction of 45.54%.
Furthermore, the intelligence level of service bearer has leaped. Power services are diverse, ranging from relay protection and dispatch commands, which are extremely sensitive to latency, to high-traffic video data. Huawei’s SPN, through FlexE (hard slicing) and soft slicing technologies, ensures rigid isolation of various services while improving bandwidth utilization efficiency; it supports IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack, enabling flexible local forwarding of services and supporting massive IoT access (e.g., transmission line monitoring, source-grid-load-storage interaction).
Finally, SPN provides long-term investment protection. Low-cost upgrades support rate evolution from 25G to 400G, avoiding redundant construction.
Lighting the “Lighthouse,” Painting a New Picture of Digital Energy
Overall, the full deployment of the SPN bearer network has resolved long-standing pain points of Yunnan’s power traditional communication system, such as limited capacity, difficult evolution, and high failure rates, laying a solid runway for high-traffic, high-concurrency digital and intelligent services.
Looking ahead, Yunnan Power Grid is accelerating the deepening application of SPN technology. Currently, SPN construction is in full swing in Wenshan, Honghe, Dehong, and other regions. As a deep participant in this digital transformation, Huawei is working side by side with Yunnan Power Grid to weave aging communication networks into intelligent, ultra-broadband new-generation power transmission bearer networks, lighting a demonstration “lighthouse” for the construction of a new-type power system nationwide.