HANDBOOK ON GREEN INFORMATION

AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Chapter 5:
Smart Grid Communications
Networks: WirelessTechnologies,
Protocols, Issues and Standards
Quang-Dung Ho and Tho Le-Ngoc
ECE Dept., McGill University, Montreal, Canada

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 Contents
Introduction to Smart Grid
Smart Grid Communications Network (SGCN)
Communications Traffic and Required Quality of
Services (QoSs)
Wireless Communications Technologies for SGCN
Neighbor Area Network (NAN) and Open
Research Issues
Smart Grid Standards
Summary
References

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 Smart Grid

a new digital meter on your breaker panel?

a wireless network that reads those meters
remotely or the data management system
that processes the information?
some solar panels on the roof?
a load-controller on the heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning system?
Smart Grid is the inclusion of all of these
things

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 Smart Grid
an automated, widely distributed energy delivery
network characterized by a two-way flow of electricity
and information, capable of monitoring and responding
to changes in everything from power plants to
customer preferences to individual appliances [1]

the electricity delivery system (from point of

generation to point of consumption) integrated with
communications and information technology for
enhanced grid operations, customer services, and
environmental benefits
(Funding for Smart GriFunding Grid Activities, US Department of Energy, 2009, link:
www.gefa.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=925)

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 Smart Grid Can
Identify and resolve faults on electricity grid
Automatically self-heal the grid
Monitor power quality and manage voltage
Identify devices or subsystems that require
maintenance
Help consumers optimize their individual
electricity consumption (minimize their bills)
Enable the use of smart appliances that can
be programmed to run on off-peak power
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 SG Comm. Network (SGCN)
The key to achieving these potential benefits
of SG is to successful build up Smart Grid
Communications Network (SGCN) that can
support all identified SG functionalities
Advanced Metering Infrastructure(AMI),
Demand Response (DR),
Electric Vehicles (EVs),
Wide-Area Situational Awareness (WASA),
distributed energy resources and storage,
distribution grid management, etc.

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 SG Comm. Network (SGCN)

Microgrid

Smart
Substation Substation Meter Customer

Non-renewable Enegy Electric Vehicle

Microgrid
Wind Enegy Solar Enegy

Power Generation Power Transmission Grid Power Distribution Grid Power Consumption

(a) Power System Layer

Wireless
Backhaul
Control Center
Concentrator Smart
Base Home
Station Device
Wired Backhaul Smart
Network Meter
Data Aggregation
Point (DAP)

Wide Area Network (WAN) Neighbor Area Network (NAN) Home Area Network (HAN)

(b) Communications Layer

The overall layered architecture of SG

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 Traffic and Required QoSs
Traffic Types Description Bandwidth Latency

AMI Networks

Meter Reads Meters report energy consumption (Ex: the 15-min interval reads are usually transferred Up to 10kbps 2 to 10sec
every 4 hours)

Demand Response (DR) Utilities to communicate with customer devices to allow customers to reduce or shift their Low 500ms ~ min
power use during peak demand periods

Connects and Disconnects Connects/disconnect customers to/from the grid Low A few 100ms, a
few minutes

Substation Networks

Synchrophasor The major primary measurement technologies deployed for Wide-Area Situational A few 100kbps 20ms to 200ms
Awareness (WASA)

Substation SCADA 4-sec interval polling by the master to all the intelligent electronic devices inside the 10 to 30kbps 2 ~ 4sec
substation

Inter-substation Communications Emerging applications such as DER might warrant GOOSE communications outside -- 12ms ~ 20ms
substation

Surveillance Video site surveillance A few Mbps A few sec

Distribution Network

Fault Location, Isolation and To control protection/restoration circuits 10 to 30kbps A few 100ms
Restoration (FLIR)

Optimization volt/var optimization and power quality optimization on distribution networks 2 ~ 5Mbps 25 ~ 100ms

Workforce Access Provides expert video, voice access to field workers 250kbps 150ms

Asset Management For predictively and pro-actively gathering and analyzing non-operational data for potential -- --
asset failures

Microgid

Protection To response to faults, isolate them and ensure loads are not affected -- 100ms ~ 10sec

Operation Optimization Monitors and controls the operations of the whole MG in order to optimize the power -- 100ms ~ min
exchanged between the MG and the main grid

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 Wireless Comm. Technologies
Technology Advantage Disadvantage Application

Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4,
ZigBee Alliance)
Low-cost, low power, wireless
mesh standard for wireless
home area networks (WHANs)
or wireless personal area
networks (WPANs)
Very low cost - inexpensive consumer devices; Very short range; Does not penetrate structures HANs for energy
Low power consumption - years of battery life; well; Low data rates; Developers must join management and
Self- organizing, secure, and reliable mesh ZigBee Alliance monitoring;
network; Network can support a large number of Unlikely to be used
users; Smart energy profile for HANs is in NANs
available

Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b/g/n) Low-cost chip sets - inexpensive consumer Does not penetrate cement buildings or Could be used for
Indoor wireless local area devices; Widespread use and expertise; Low- basements; Small coverage and short distances HANs, MGANs,
networks (WLANs), wireless cost application development; Stable and limit wide spread use; Security issues with and NANs
mesh networks mature standards multiple networks operating in same locations

3G Cellular (UMTS,
CDMA2000, EV-DO, EDGE)
Wide-area wireless networks
for voice, video, and data
services in a mobile
environment
Expensive infrastructure already widely
deployed, stable and mature; Well
standardized; Equipment prices keep dropping;
Readily available expertise in deployments;
Cellular chipset very inexpensive; Large
selection of vendors and service providers
Utility must rent the infrastructure from a cellular AMI Backhaul,
carrier for a monthly access fee; Utility does not Field Area Network
own infrastructure; Technology is in the (FAN)
transition phase to LTE deployment; Public
cellular networks not sufficiently stable/secure
for mission critical/utility applications; Not well-
suited for large data/high bandwidth
applications

LTE
Enhancements to 3G Universal
Mobile Telecommunications
System (UMTS) mobile
networking, providing for
enhanced multimedia services
Low latency, high capacity; Fully integrated with
3GGP, compatible with earlier 3GPP releases;
Full mobility for enhanced multimedia services;
Carrier preferred protocol; Low power
consumption
Utility must rent the infrastructure from a cellular AMI Backhaul,
carrier for a monthly access fee; Utility does not SCADA Backhaul,
own infrastructure; Not readily available in many Demand
markets/still in testing phases in others; Response, FAN,
Equipment cost high; Vendor differentiation still Video Surveillance
unclear; Lack of expertise in designing LTE
networks; Utilities access to spectrum

WiMAX (IEEE 802.16)
Wireless metropolitan area
network (MAN) providing high-
speed fixed/mobile Internet
access
Efficient backhaul of data aggregating 100s Limited access to spectrum licenses in the US; AMI Backhaul,
access points; QoS supports service Trade off between higher bit rates over longer SCADA Backhaul,
assurance; Battery-backup improves reliability distances; Asymmetrical up and down link Demand
and security; Simple, scalable network rollout speeds; User shared bandwidth; Competing Response, FAN,
and customer-premises equipment (CPE) against future 4G cellular Video Surveillance
attachment; Faster speeds than 3G cellular;
Large variety of CPE and gateway/ base station
designs

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 Neighbor Area Network (NAN)

Gathers a huge volume of various types

of data and distributes important control
signals from and to millions of devices
installed at customer premises

The most critical segment that connects

utilities and customers in order to enable
primarily important SG applications

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 Characteristics of NAN
To support a huge number of devices that
distribute over large geographical areas
Must be scalable to network size and self-
configurable
Heterogeneous and location-aware
Link condition and thus network connectivity
are time-varying due to multipath fading,
surrounding environment, harsh weather,
electricity power outage, etc.

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 Characteristics of NAN
Deployed outdoor, thus must be robust to
node and link failures
Carries different types of traffic that require
a wide range of QoSs
Needs QoS awareness and provisioning
Mainly supports Multi-Point-to-Point (MP2P)
and Point-to-Multiple-Point (P2MP) traffic
Very vulnerable to privacy and security

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 Wireless Routing Overview

Routing protocols for wireless networks

Simple
Flooding-based Message implosion, resource-blind,
mainly for P2P

Simple, exploits location infor.

Location-based
Loops, distance not represents link quality

Adapts well to link quality, supports

Self-organizing MP2P and P2MP, supports QoSs
Complicated, needs more signalings

Resource-efficient, supports security

Cluster-based
Complicated, less dynamic to link conditions

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 Candidate Routing Protocols for NAN

Greedy Geographic routing (GEO) [40]

Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy

Networks (RPL) [4146]

IEEE 802.11s Hybrid Wireless Mesh

Protocol (HWMP) [4749]

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 Open Issues in NAN
Downlink Communications
QoS Differentiation and Provisioning
Network Self-healing
Multicasting
Cluster-based Routing
Optimal Network Design

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 Smart Grid Standards
Inter-operability: the ability of two or more
systems or components to exchange
information and to use the information that
has been exchanged
The overall SG system is lacking widely
accepted standards

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 Smart Grid Standards
Standards Development Organizations (SDOs):
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
American National Standards Institute (ANSI),
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC),
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),
International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
International Telecommunication Union (ITU),
etc.
Alliances:
ZigBee Alliance, Wi-Fi Alliance, HomePlug Powerline
Alliance, Z-Wave Alliance, etc.

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 NIST Activities
primary responsibility to coordinate development
of a framework that includes protocols and model
standards for information management to achieve
inter-operability of smart grid devices and systems
... (Energy Independence and Security Act of
2007, Title XIII, Section 1305)
Specific activities:
(i) identifying existing applicable standards
(ii) addressing and solving gaps where a standard
extension or new standard is needed and
(iii) identifying overlaps where multiple standards
address some common information

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 NIST Activities
NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart
Grid Inter-operability Standards, Release
1.0 [52]
25 relevant standards (and additional 50
standards for further review)
NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart
Grid Inter-operability Standards, Release
2.0 [53]
34 reviewed standards (and additional 62
standards for further review)

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 NIST Activities
Priority Action Plans (PAPs), each
addresses one of the following situations:
a gap exists, where a standard extension or
new standard is needed;
an overlap exists, where two complementary
standards address some information that is in
common but different for the same scope of
application

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 NIST Activities
PAPs identified by NIST

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 Representative SG Standards
WiMAX
3G/4G
Cellular Wi-Fi
IEC 61850 IEEE P2030
DNP3 SONET
Substation
Wide Area Network
IEC 61400-25
IEC 61850
DNP3
CIM
Control center
Wind farm SUN
Wi-Fi
3G/4G Cellular

IEEE 1547 Neighbor Area Network

IEC 61850-7-420 BACnet
OpenADR
DRBizNet
SAE J2293
Distributed Energy C12.18 SAE J2836 Commercial user
Resources C12.19 Zigbee SAE J2847
C12.22 Smart Wi-Fi
M-Bus meter

Residential user PHEV

Home Area Network

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 Summary
This chapter gives an insight view of the Smart Grid
Communications Network (SGCN) by presenting
its layered architecture,
typical types of traffic that it may carry and associated quality of
service requirements,
as well as candidate wireless communications technologies that can
be employed for its implementation
Networking issues that the Neighbor Area Network (NAN)
segment of SGCN needs to tackle are highlighted by
exploring characteristics and requirements of this network segment
identifying important gaps that existing wireless routing protocols
need to cover for their applicability into NAN
This chapter also reviews a number of standards for smart
grid inter-operability
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 References

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 References

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 References

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 References

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 References

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 References

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