Huawei and Power Customers Release the "fgOTN Power White Paper" to Build the Next-Generation Power Communication Network

[Cape Town, South Africa, June 18, 2025] During the Africa Energy Forum, Huawei and several African power customers released the fgOTN White Paper for Electric Power (hereinafter referred to as the white paper), providing suggestions for African electric power companies on the construction of next-generation power communication network.

In recent years, with the deepening of digitalization in the electric power industry, AI models have been popular and many new services have emerged in the electric power industry. On the other hand, SDH (synchronous digital hierarchy), as a traditional power communication network technology, is facing the problem that the technology evolution stops and the devices on the live network gradually retire from the network.

Based on the preceding information, the white paper released this time will provide a reference architecture and network construction suggestions for the "next-generation power communication network construction" based on the latest fgOTN (fine grain OTN) technology.

According to the white paper, as new technologies are continuously integrated with electric power services, the new power communication network needs to be fully automated, digitalized, and intelligentized, and realizes centralized and unattended power grid operation and inspection, promotes market-oriented electric power transactions and office digitalization for enterprises, and improve the capabilities of observing, describing, and controlling power grids. Therefore, the industry needs a communication technology with larger bandwidth, higher communication efficiency, and more flexible architecture to carry OT (operating technology), IT (information technology), and Internet services of electric power.

fgOTN White Paper for Electric Power

The fgOTN is a small-granularity hard pipe technology extended based on the OTN standard system. The fgOTN technology provides the electric power industry with a secure hard isolation solution based on rigid hard pipes. In addition, the small-granularity hard pipe technology improves bandwidth utilization, meeting the current and future development requirements of the power communication network.

Huawei and several African power customers released the white paper

Luo Xin, Optical Product Director of Huawei Southern Africa Region, said, "fgOTN is a new technology defined by ITU-T. It inherits the security and stability features of SDH and has the advantages of OTN, meeting the requirements of power systems. In addition, CIGRE set up the D2.65 working group in April to study the application of fgOTN in the electric power industry. Based on the preceding information, we hope that by releasing the white paper, more electric power customers can understand the fgOTN and use the fgOTN to build the next-generation power communication network.

For more information about the white paper, please visit: https://e.huawei.com/en/material/optical/0673b498f2344a858cf3cb9898cda88c