S1 COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS TO ENABLE THE SMART GRID

Symposium Co-Chairs

  • Vincent Wong, University of British Columbia, Canada
  • Lars Nordström, KTH - The Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
  • Angela Yingjun Zhang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
     


Scope and Motivation

Communication and networking technologies are essential for the smart grid in order to access distributed sensor information and to communicate configurations and set-points to actuators. They are critical to enable automated and distributed energy generation and efficient bidirectional power flows. Key tasks entail the integration, effective cooperation, and information interchange among the many interconnected elements of the electric power grid. Geographic distribution, scale, and heterogeneity become challenges that need to be addressed, in particular when realizing smartness in the energy distribution grid. Communication solutions in that setting need to realize machine-to-machine (M2M) communication with very high dependability and security standards, while satisfying real-time requirements posed by the targeted control application.
A smart grid communication infrastructure will in most cases not be designed from scratch, but needs to reuse existing available technologies and infrastructures, hence forming a heterogeneous communication network in which varying communication properties need to be detected and managed. Major research effort is required to integrate these components, technologies, and protocols into a versatile communication solution that can support a wide variety of smart grid applications ranging from smart metering data collection and demand response to microgrid management and interaction of medium-voltage substation control with low-voltage distribution grid management.
This Symposium on Communications and Networks to Enable the Smart Grid has the objective to identify communication requirements in various grid applications, analyze existing communication technologies in that context and to develop communication architectures and protocols as well as communication-centric data-management solutions meeting those requirements.

Topics of Particular Interest

Original papers are welcome on, but not limited to, the following aspects of communication technology and networking for smart grid scenarios (including smart metering):
  • Physical and MAC layer protocols, low power link layer technologies (PLC and wireless)
  • Interference assessment and mitigation
  • Resource management and cross-layer optimization
  • Capacity and network planning, resource and service discovery
  • Multi-hop communication and mesh networking
  • Scalable network and system architecture (e.g., FAN, HAN, NAN and BAN)
  • Lightweight IP networking stacks for constrained devices
  • Communication protocols optimized for (real-time) information collection and control applications
  • Data models and communication-aware data management solutions for smart metering and smart grids
  • Coexistence, convergence and interoperability mechanism
  • Signal processing and coding techniques for energy related sensor information
  • Integration of smart meters in smart grid ICT networks; integration of electrical, gas and water meters in smart grid ICT solutions
  • Performance of smart metering and smart grid communication solutions and results from field trials
  • Interoperability and performance of communication solutions for substation automation and control of distributed energy resources