Inferring Power Grid Information with Power Line Communications: Review and Insights

High-frequency signals were widely studied in the last decade to identify grid and channel conditions in PLNs. PLMs operating on the grid's physical layer are capable of transmitting such signals to infer information about the grid. Hence, PLC is a suitable communication technology for SG applications, especially suited for grid monitoring and surveillance. In this paper, we provide several contributions: 1) a classification of PLC-based applications; 2) a taxonomy of the related methodologies; 3) a review of the literature in the area of PLC Grid Information Inference (GII); and, insights that can be leveraged to further advance the field. We found research contributions addressing PLMs for three main PLC-GII applications: topology inference, anomaly detection, and physical layer key generation. In addition, various PLC-GII measurement, processing, and analysis approaches were found to provide distinctive features in measurement resolution, computation complexity, and analysis accuracy. We utilize the outcome of our review to shed light on the current limitations of the research contributions and suggest future research directions in this field.Comment: IEEE Communication Surveys and Tutorials Journa

Cable Monitoring Using Broadband Power Line Communication

Power line communication (PLC) is considered one of the possible communication technologies for applications in the field of smart metering, smart substations, smart homes, and recently for the management of renewable resources or micro grid control. This article deals with the use of PLC technology to determine the technical condition of the cable. This coefficient can help distribution system operators (DSO) to assess the condition of their cable routes. In this way, possible cable breakdowns and subsequent power outages can be prevented. The resulting methodology for calculating the coefficient is presented in two specific examples of routes, in which a significant benefit for DSO’s can be found

Security Evaluation of Substation Network Architectures

In recent years, security of industrial control systems has been the main research focus due to the potential cyber-attacks that can impact the physical operations. As a result of these risks, there has been an urgent need to establish a stronger security protection against these threats. Conventional firewalls with stateful rules can be implemented in the critical cyberinfrastructure environment which might require constant updates. Despite the ongoing effort to maintain the rules, the protection mechanism does not restrict malicious data flows and it poses the greater risk of potential intrusion occurrence. The contributions of this thesis are motivated by the aforementioned issues which include a systematic investigation of attack-related scenarios within a substation network in a reliable sense. The proposed work is two-fold: (i) system architecture evaluation and (ii) construction of attack tree for a substation network. Cyber-system reliability remains one of the important factors in determining the system bottleneck for investment planning and maintenance. It determines the longevity of the system operational period with or without any disruption. First, a complete enumeration of existing implementation is exhaustively identified with existing communication architectures (bidirectional) and new ones with strictly unidirectional. A detailed modeling of the extended 10 system architectures has been evaluated. Next, attack tree modeling for potential substation threats is formulated. This quantifies the potential risks for possible attack scenarios within a network or from the external networks. The analytical models proposed in this thesis can serve as a fundamental development that can be further researched

Upgrading the Power Grid Functionalities with Broadband Power Line Communications: Basis, Applications, Current Trends and Challenges

This article reviews the basis and the main aspects of the recent evolution of Broadband Power Line Communications (BB-PLC or, more commonly, BPL) technologies. The article starts describing the organizations and alliances involved in the development and evolution of BPL systems, as well as the standardization institutions working on PLC technologies. Then, a short description of the technical foundation of the recent proposed technologies and a comparison of the main specifications are presented; the regulatory activities related to the limits of emissions and immunity are also addressed. Finally, some representative applications of BPL and some selected use cases enabled by these technologies are summarized, together with the main challenges to be faced.This work was financially supported in part by the Basque Government under the grants IT1426-22, PRE_2021_1_0006, and PRE_2021_1_0051, and by the Spanish Government under the grants PID2021-124706OB-I00 and RTI2018-099162-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”)

Remote control and monitoring of power systems

Includes synopsis.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-93).Power systems are typically complex and can be affected by their environment in ways that cannot be completely predicted by their designers. It is thus imperative that monitoring is considered as part of the design of new power systems. Due to the associated costs of maintenance, repair, and downtime, monitoring these systems is particularly important when the installations are remote. Remote locations benefit greatly from renewable energy sources. As a result, this work focuses on a novel Hybrid Inverter system developed by Optimal Power Solutions Pty. Ltd. (OPS). This system uses renewable energy sources, grid power, and diesel generators together with a bi-directional inverter to supply a remote location with grid-quality power

Design, development, and validation of a remotely reconfigurable vehicle telemetry system for consumer and government applications

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-68).This thesis explores the design and development of a cost-effective, easy-to-use system for remotely monitoring vehicle performance and drivers' habits, with the aim of collecting data for vehicle characterization and traffic shaping. Vehicular congestion and concerns over fuel reserves, pollution, and carbon emissions have recently emerged as prominent sociopolitical concerns. These problems are formidable, but could be addressed more fruitfully with better information about vehicles and drivers habits, leading to policies such as vehicle-specific congestion charging or an odometer-based road tax. Despite the proliferation of sensors in cars, data is often hidden due to the antiquated nature of the federally-required On-Board Diagnostics (OBD). Systems to log and process such data exist, but no well known reconfigurable systems augment OBD with additional sensor data and transmit it over a cellular network. This thesis proposes a system wherein vehicles become distributed sensors, each transmitting a rich supply of information. The standardization of OBD and decreasing cost of bandwidth make now an opportune time to develop a real-time logging system. Inexpensive processors make it possible to provide privacy through onboard calculation, obfuscating much personally-identifiable data. This document discusses the planning process, experimental configurations of hardware and software, results, and conclusions associated with the development of a cellular diagnostic system capable of supporting an "app" model for information feedback. I present a Bluetooth-OBD logger, a cellular logger, and a web interface capable of representing live and historical data from vehicles, including example applications for calculating congestion pricing. This project proves the feasibility of capturing data using a remotely reconfigurable controller area network (CAN) to general packet radio service (GPRS) interpreter, visualizing the information in real-time, and writing applications to make use of the incoming data. The hardware and software were proven successful in meeting the goals set for the project. The hardware proved robust, gathering data without issue for hundreds of miles. The sample data demonstrated low bandwidth use, identified network weaknesses, and pointed out issues with the currently-legislated OBD standard. This thesis closes by exploring future possibilities suggested by the development of this system, including wireless odometry and next-generation OBD.by Joshua Eric Siegel.S.B

Smart grid technology deployment and impact assessment at eThekwini electricity.

M. Sc. Eng. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.The world‟s population is increasing rapidly and is projected to reach 8 billion within the next few decades. Urban migration is also on the rise and it is estimated that there would be significant growth in Africa and more Africans will reside in urban rather than rural areas by 2030. eThekwini, as a leading city in Africa has to establish practices to enable that it utilizes its current resources optimally and sustainably to cater for its future energy and resource requirements. The role of Smart Grid (SG) systems as an electricity industry enabler has been recognized throughout the developed world. The effective introduction and implementation of SGs is also regarded as a major enabler to realize some of the key objectives at local, provincial and national government levels. Significant investment has gone into modernizing the existing electricity grid infrastructure at eThekwini to make it smarter, albeit with varying degrees of success. The term “SG” refers to optimizing, automating and modernizing of the electrical network so that it monitors, protects and automatically optimizes the operation of its interconnected elements. In the eThekwini context, this would include the electricity purchase points from Eskom; distributed generation injection points; the high-, medium- and low voltage networks as well as the industrial, commercial and domestic consumers and their applications and devices. The SG is characterized by a two way flow of electricity and information to create an optimized and automated network that has self-healing properties. It would incorporate the benefits of distributed computing and modern communication systems to deliver information in real-time which enables the almost instantaneous balance of supply and demand. SGs will be designed to ensure high levels of reliability, security, quality, availability and will also aim to improve economic productivity, minimize environmental impact, maximize safety and improve quality of life. The aim, objective and research question of this study will address as to how eThekwini‟s SG maturity levels compare to local and international peers, whether the SG technology deployment is aligned with its objectives, to ascertain the impact of SG implementation and whether the anticipated benefits are being realized. The concept of SG has only been recently formalized at eThekwini and very little research has been conducted in this area which this study aims to address