Real problems solving in PRIME networks by means of simulation

Smart grid is one of the most important technological initiatives nowadays. This technology is a recent proposal that uses computerized systems to improve the availability and reliability of the electricity distribution network, which main purpose is to solve the different problems derived from the increment in the number of users and power sources. Among the different smart grid components, the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is currently the most developed one, since nowadays there are hundreds of intelligent meter deployments all over the world. Several technologies can be used to widespread this infrastructure, however powerline communications are the most widely used. The different standards based on this technology for smart metering are still under development and lots of problems are found in real scenarios. In order to simplify this development and the problem solving processes, a PLC simulation environment that simulate the real meters code was recently presented. In this paper, it is shown the current status of this tool and one of its real applications, in which a real problem found in a PRIME based metering network is solved.