Wireless communication for smart grid applications at distribution level — Feasibility and requirements

Smart grid technology places greater demands for reliability on communications infrastructure. This work focuses on identifying requirements for distribution feeder level communications. Due to the large number of distribution components connected to the distribution level feeders, a massively deployed wireless communication network is identified as the potential technology for this application. This network would allow prioritized communication: high priority for abnormal events and system control operations, and low priority communication for asset management tasks. A three-layer wireless communication architecture is proposed in this work to increase the reliability and reduce the latency of event notification. Fault location is considered as an example application to illustrate the proposed architecture.

[1]  G. Manimaran,et al.  Application of Sensor Network for Secure Electric Energy Infrastructure , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery.

[2]  B. Don Russell,et al.  Reliability improvement of distribution feeders through real-time, intelligent monitoring , 2009, 2009 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting.

[3]  G Rao,et al.  WiMAX: A Wireless Technology Revolution , 2007 .

[4]  James Stoupis,et al.  Field investigation and analysis of incipient faults leading to a catastrophic failure in an underground distribution feeder , 2009, 2009 IEEE/PES Power Systems Conference and Exposition.

[5]  A.F. Snyder,et al.  The ANSI C12 protocol suite - updated and now with network capabilities , 2007, 2007 Power Systems Conference: Advanced Metering, Protection, Control, Communication, and Distributed Resources.

[6]  Seung-Jae Lee,et al.  Evaluation of feeder monitoring parameters for incipient fault detection using Laplace trend statistic , 2003, 38th IAS Annual Meeting on Conference Record of the Industry Applications Conference, 2003..

[7]  T. Tran-Quoc,et al.  Distribution network modeling for power line communication applications , 2005, International Symposium on Power Line Communications and Its Applications, 2005..

[8]  Subir Kumar Sarkar,et al.  Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks: Principles, Protocols and Applications , 2007 .

[9]  Da Xin-yu,et al.  Performance Evaluation of Ad Hoc Routing Protocols Using ns Simulations , 2005 .

[10]  R.E. Mackiewicz,et al.  Overview of IEC 61850 and Benefits , 2006, 2005/2006 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition.

[11]  Y. C. Tay,et al.  Sift: A MAC Protocol for Event-Driven Wireless Sensor Networks , 2006, EWSN.

[12]  Kwok-Hong Mak,et al.  Migrating electrical power network SCADA systems to TCP/IP and Ethernet networking , 2002 .

[13]  C. Brunner.  IEC 61850 for power system communication , 2008, 2008 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition.

[14]  S.E. Collier.  Delivering broad band Internet over power lines: what you should know , 2004, Rural Electric Power Conference, 2004.

[15]  J. I. Huertas,et al.  Wireless data transmission from inside electromagnetic fields , 2009, 2009 6th International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Computing Science and Automatic Control (CCE).

[16]  Chong Wang,et al.  Packet-oriented communication protocols for Smart Grid Services over low-speed PLC , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Power Line Communications and Its Applications.

[17]  G.N. Ericsson.  Communication requirements - basis for investment in a utility wide-area network , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery.