Key performance aspects of an LTE FDD based Smart Grid communications network

The Smart Grid will enable a new era of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and consumption driven by efficiency, reliability, flexibility and environmental concerns. A key component of the Smart Grid is a communications infrastructure for data acquisition, monitoring, control and protection. In this paper, we evaluate the key performance aspects of an LTE Release 8 FDD network as the wide area communications network for Smart Grid applications. We develop analytical results for latency and channel utilization and discuss the implications for Smart Grid traffic sources, particularly the fact that system capacity is likely to be control channel limited. We also develop an OPNET based discrete event simulation model for a PMU based fault monitoring system using LTE FDD as its communication medium and use it to validate the analytical findings. In particular, we demonstrate how uplink data plane latencies of less than 10ms can only be achieved using small application layer packets. These findings can be used to understand how to best deploy an LTE FDD network in a Smart Grid environment and also in the development of new radio resource management algorithms that are tailored specifically to Smart Grid traffic sources

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION ROUND ROBIN SCHEDULING IN ADVANCED METERING INFRASTRUCTURE OVER LTE

SMART GRID consists of three essential elements, namely information technology, telecommunications and electricity or Gas. These three elements work together to enable two-way communication between the utility company PLN with consumers. With SMART GRID, electrical energy transfer not only from the electricity provider for the consumer, but also vice versa. With SMART GRID technology as well, consumers will have fully control to manage their energy consumption. Sensors and automatic control technology in the SMART GRID allows setting the activation of consumer electrical appliances automatically taking into account the amount of electrical energy. All data is recorded on the sensor will be sent to the utility company to be processed in order to determine the future development strategy. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) plays an important role in data collection sensors. Nowadays Telkom has tested and successfully using the USSD protocol in GSM technology or Indihome WIFI network as access media to the AMI network, especially for PLN. In accordance with the development trend of telecommunication, LTE is currently a priority of network expansion of service provider network, so it is necessary to do research on the performance of metering data collection using the LTE network in the AMI environment. The problem is a lot of devices in the Smart Grid communications environment, such as sensors (smart meters) and the control device, to send or receive small packages at fairly frequent intervals. LTE is not designed for this traffic pattern, it is designed to support voice traffic and data that sudden and large where individual users may send or receive a package of relatively large (eg, with respect to web browsing). In this study the authors using Round Robin Scheduling, it is considered most likely to deliver the two interests that the individual users as well as of the smart meter. Evaluation is done by means of simulation using NS3, with preliminary data comparing the default scheduling in LTE, and continued by using several traffic conditions and the number of nodes that are involved specifically with the Round Robin scheduling to find numbers of node that can be served. As results, by considering the QoS measurements showed that the number of nodes that can be served numbers of 300 nodes Smart meters

LTE and Wi-Fi Coexistence in Unlicensed Spectrum with Application to Smart Grid: A Review

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is expanding its utilization in unlicensed band by deploying LTE Unlicensed (LTEU) and Licensed Assisted Access LTE (LTE-LAA) technology. Smart Grid can take the advantages of unlicensed bands for achieving two-way communication between smart meters and utility data centers by using LTE-U/LTE-LAA. However, both schemes must co-exist with the incumbent Wi-Fi system. In this paper, several co-existence schemes of Wi-Fi and LTE technology is comprehensively reviewed. The challenges of deploying LTE and Wi-Fi in the same band are clearly addressed based on the papers reviewed. Solution procedures and techniques to resolve the challenging issues are discussed in a short manner. The performance of various network architectures such as listenbefore- talk (LBT) based LTE, carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) based Wi-Fi is briefly compared. Finally, an attempt is made to implement these proposed LTEWi- Fi models in smart grid technology.Comment: submitted in 2018 IEEE PES T&

What Can Wireless Cellular Technologies Do about the Upcoming Smart Metering Traffic?

The introduction of smart electricity meters with cellular radio interface puts an additional load on the wireless cellular networks. Currently, these meters are designed for low duty cycle billing and occasional system check, which generates a low-rate sporadic traffic. As the number of distributed energy resources increases, the household power will become more variable and thus unpredictable from the viewpoint of the Distribution System Operator (DSO). It is therefore expected, in the near future, to have an increased number of Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) devices with Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU)-like capabilities in the distribution grid, thus allowing the utilities to monitor the low voltage grid quality while providing information required for tighter grid control. From a communication standpoint, the traffic profile will change drastically towards higher data volumes and higher rates per device. In this paper, we characterize the current traffic generated by smart electricity meters and supplement it with the potential traffic requirements brought by introducing enhanced Smart Meters, i.e., meters with PMU-like capabilities. Our study shows how GSM/GPRS and LTE cellular system performance behaves with the current and next generation smart meters traffic, where it is clearly seen that the PMU data will seriously challenge these wireless systems. We conclude by highlighting the possible solutions for upgrading the cellular standards, in order to cope with the upcoming smart metering traffic.Comment: Submitted; change: corrected location of eSM box in Fig. 1; May 22, 2015: Major revision after review; v4: revised, accepted for publicatio

Delay-Optimal Relay Selection in Device-to-Device Communications for Smart Grid

The smart grid communication network adopts a hierarchical structure which consists of three kinds of networks which are Home Area Networks (HANs), Neighborhood Area Networks (NANs), and Wide Area Networks (WANs). The smart grid NANs comprise of the communication infrastructure used to manage the electricity distribution to the end users. Cellular technology with LTE-based standards is a widely-used and forward-looking technology hence becomes a promising technology that can meet the requirements of different applications in NANs. However, the LTE has a limitation to cope with the data traffic characteristics of smart grid applications, thus require for enhancements. Device-to-Device (D2D) communications enable direct data transmissions between devices by exploiting the cellular resources, which could guarantee the improvement of LTE performances. Delay is one of the important communication requirements for the real-time smart grid applications. In this paper, the application of D2D communications for the smart grid NANs is investigated to improve the average end-to-end delay of the system. A relay selection algorithm that considers both the queue state and the channel state of nodes is proposed. The optimization problem is formulated as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) and a linear programming method is used to find the optimal policy for the CMDP problem. Simulation results are presented to prove the effectiveness of the proposed scheme