© University of Ottawa, ON, Canada1 Chapter 25: Smart Grid Communications: Opportunities and Challenges Hussein T. Mouftah and Melike Erol-Kantarci University.

© University of Ottawa, ON, Canada 1

Chapter 25: Smart Grid Communications:Opportunities and Challenges

Hussein T. Mouftah and Melike Erol-Kantarci

University of Ottawa

HANDBOOK ON GREEN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

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Outline

Introduction to Smart Grid

Communication Technologies for Smart Grid Wireless CommunicationTechnologies Wired CommunicationTechnoliges

Communication Enabled Smart Grid Applications

Challenges in Smart Grid Communications

Summary and Conclusions

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Introduction

Problems of the traditional electricity grid: Demand is growing Fossil fuel reserves are diminishing Costs are increasing Aging infrastructure Reliability Renewable energy resources are not widely

used Demand management is weak

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Introduction

Smart grid integrates Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the power systems for:

Increased reliability

More Security

Better efficiency

Reduced environmental impacts

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Smart Grid

Generation Coordination of renewable generation

Storage Coordination of electric vehicle charging and

discharging

Transmission and Distribution Monitoring the utility assets

Demand Load and energy production management for the residential consumers

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The Big Picture

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Communication Technologies for the Smart Grid

Wireless Communication Technologies: IEEE 802.15.4 Z-wave IEEE 802.11 IEEE 802.16 LTE/LTE-A IEEE 802.22

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Communication Technologies for the Smart Grid

Wired Communication Technologies

Power Line Communications• IEEE P1901/Broadband over Power LinesIEEE P1901/Broadband over Power Lines• ITU-T G.hnITU-T G.hn• ANSI/CEA-709ANSI/CEA-709

Wireline Communication Technologies• Fiber Optical CommunicationsFiber Optical Communications• EthernetEthernet

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IEEE 802.15.4- Zigbee

Zigbee is a short-range, low-data rate, energy-efficient wireless protocol

Zigbee utilizes 16 channels in the 2.4GHz ISM band worldwide 13 channels in the 915MHz band in North America one channel in the 868MHz band in Europe It supports data rates of 250 kbps, 100kbps, 40 kbps,

and 20 kbps

ZigBee Smart Energy Profile (SEP) aims to support the needs of smart metering and AMI, and provide communication among utilities and household devices

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Z-wave

Z-Wave is a proprietary, short-range, low-data rate wireless RF mesh networking standard

Z-wave uses the 908MHz ISM band in the Americas, and its data rate is 40kbps

Z-wave provides connectivity for devices such as; lamps, switches, thermostats, garage doors. Z-wave can be employed in the HAN segment of

the smart grid

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IEEE 802.11 - WiFi

Data rate of IEEE 802.11 standards range from 1 Mbps to 100 Mbps It operates in the 2.4 GHz ISM band

Wi-Fi is targeting Home Area Networks (HAN), Neighborhood Area Networks (NAN) and Field Area Networks (FAN) in the smart grid

Wi-Fi is already being used for municipal-scale network infrastructures outdoors

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IEEE 802.16 - WIMAX

WIMAX uses the licensed bands of 10-66 GHz The IEEE 802.16 standard also allows the use of

license-exempt sub 11GHz bands

WIMAX can provide theoretical data rates up to 70Mbps

The communication range is around 50km for fixed stations and almost 5km for mobile stations

WIMAX can provide long range communications for the smart grid

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LTE and LTE-A

The peak data rates for LTE is around 300Mbps at the downlink and 80Mbps at the uplink with 20MHz channel bandwidth and 4x4 MIMO antennas LTE-A’s targeted peak downlink transmission rate is

1Gbps and the uplink transmission rate is 500Mbps

A typical LTE cell has a diameter of 4km By relaying technique, range can be extended

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IEEE 802.22 –Cognitive Radio

Cognitive Radio (CR) provides access to unlicensed users to the spectrum that is not utilized by licensed users A CR has the ability to sense unused spectrum, use it

and then vacate as soon as a licensed user arrives

The bands that are planned to be used by 802.22 are the UHF/VHF bands between 54 and 862 MHz and their guard bands

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Power Line Communications

Power Line Communications (PLC) use the low voltage power lines as the communication medium

PLC has been already used by some utilities for load control and remote metering It can be integrated to the smart metering system

since the power lines already reach the meter

As the PLC does not have external cabling cost, it is considered to be convenient for HANs, NANs and FANs in the smart grid

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IEEE P1901/Broadband over Power Lines

BPL has high data rates exceeding 100 Mbps using frequencies below 100 MHz

P1901 workgroup has selected two physical layers for the standard Wavelet OFDM-based PHY FFT OFDM-based PHY.

These PHY techniques aim to improve the communication over the noisy power lines

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ITU-T G.hn

G.hn standard is developed for communication in residential premises, offices, hotels, etc.

G.hn is able to operate over all types of in-home wiring including phone line, power line, coaxial cable, and Cat-5 cable It uses a windowed OFDM-based PHY with a

programmable set of parameters

G.hn can support bit rates up to 1Gbps

G.hn devices aim to be interoperable with power line devices that use the IEEE P1901 standard

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ANSI/CEA-709

ANSI/CEA-709 series of standards have been developed for home control and automation

ANSI/EIA 709.1 is also known as Lonworks Lonworks platform is a proprietary technology Lonworks operates in the 115-132MHz band Data rates of Lonworks can reach up to a few kbps

NIST has included Lonworks as a candidate standard along with IEEE P1901 and ITU G.hn

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Fiber Optic Communications

Fiber optics is already used in the power grid to connect utility head offices and substations

Fiber optics is not impacted by electromagnetic interference

It is ideal for the high voltage operating environment Its major drawback of fiber is high deployment cost

Optic Ethernet can be also utilized in the smart grid

It is also possible to employ a combination of the wireless and wired communication technologies in the smart grid

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Comparison of Communication Standards

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Communication Enabled Smart Grid Applications

Direct Load Control (DLC)Wireless sensor network (WSN)-based demand

managementiPowerSensor web services for energy managementMachine-to-machine (M2M) communications

based demand managementEnergy saving applications on appliancesElectric vehicle demand management

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Direct Load Control (DLC)

DLC means passing the control of several appliances to the utility or an aggregator Appliances that can be remotely controlled are pool

pumps and the heating/cooling appliances A pilot study in Australia has shown that cycling air

conditioners have resulted in 17% of peak load reduction

DLC requires simple communications between the consumers and the utility Utility commands can be delivered to the customers

through smart meters

Zigbee or one of the PLC standards can be a suitable option for DLC

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Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)-based Demand Management

in-Home Energy Management (iHEM) is a non-intrusive, interactive demand management scheme

Energy Management Unit and appliances communicate wirelessly over the WSN

iHEM aims to shift consumer demands to off-peak hours

Unlike, DLC, iHEM suggests convenient start times for the appliances

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Intelligent and Personalized energy conservation system by wireless sensor

networks (iPower)iPower:

Implements an energy conservation application for multi-dwelling homes and offices

Employs a WSN, a control server, power-line control devices and user identification devices

Sensor nodes are deployed in each room and they monitor the rooms with light, sound and temperature sensors

They form a multi-hop WSN and send their measurements to the gateway when an event occurs

iPower combines wireless and power line communication technologies

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Sensor web services for energy management

Energy management application is a suit of three energy management modules: The first module enables users to learn the energy

consumption of their appliances while they are away from home

The second module is a load shedding application for the utilities

• Load shedding is applied to the air conditioning appliances Load shedding is applied to the air conditioning appliances when the load on the grid is critical when the load on the grid is critical

The third module offers an application for energy generating customers

• Customers can monitor and control the amount of energy stored Customers can monitor and control the amount of energy stored and energy sold back to the grid while they are away from homeand energy sold back to the grid while they are away from home

These applications utilize sensor web services

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Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications based demand management

M2M communications have been implemented in the Whirlpool Smart Device Network (WSDN)

WSDN consists of HAN, the Internet and AMIWSDN utilizes several technologies together

Wi-Fi connects the smart appliances and forms the HAN ZigBee and PLC connect the smart meters in the AMI Broadband Internet connects consumers to the Internet

It enables remote access to appliance energy consumption

It also provides load shedding capabilities to utilities during critical peaks

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Energy saving applications on appliances

An appliance-to-appliance communication protocol for energy saving applications

Energy management protocol allows consumers to set a maximum consumption value

Based on this threshold, the residential gateway is able to turn off the appliances that are in standby mode once these limits are exceeded

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Electric vehicle demand management

Home Gateway and Controller (HGC) communicates with the PHEV Controls its charging and discharging profile based

on• Status of the roof-top solar power generation unitStatus of the roof-top solar power generation unit• Demands of the smart appliancesDemands of the smart appliances

HGC also communicates with the other HGC devices in the neighborhood and coordinates PHEV loads

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Challenges in Smart Grid Communications

Wireless channels are • Prone to interference due to the populated ISM bandsProne to interference due to the populated ISM bands• Have lower bandwidth than wired communication Have lower bandwidth than wired communication

technologiestechnologies• Do not penetrate well through concrete constructionDo not penetrate well through concrete construction• Their range is limitedTheir range is limited• The impact of harsh smart grid environment on wireless The impact of harsh smart grid environment on wireless

communications is not explored wellcommunications is not explored well

Powerline communications suffer from• Noisy channel conditionsNoisy channel conditions• Channel characteristics that vary depending on the devices Channel characteristics that vary depending on the devices

plugged inplugged in• Electromagnetic interference (EMI) due to unshielded power Electromagnetic interference (EMI) due to unshielded power

lineslines• Poor isolation among units Poor isolation among units

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Security in Smart Grid Communications

The potential security risks identified by NIST: Increased complexity causing device

misconfiguration based errors Increased number of interconnections increase the

risks of denial of service attacks, injection of malicious software and compromised hardware

Increased number of network nodes increase the number of entry points and paths that might be exploited by adversaries

Increased amount of data increase the risk of compromising data and violating user privacy

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Privacy in Smart Grid Communications

Consumer privacy may be violated if high resolution electricity consumption data is made available to malicious users By looking at the consumption, it is possible to obtain

information on absence or presence, the number of individuals in the property, sleep cycles, meal times, etc.

A PHEV’s location can be tracked from its charging location

Sophisticated attacks may benefit from data leakage from consumer premises

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Summary and Conclusions

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are eventually becoming integrated to electrical power grid to improve the grid’s reliability, efficiency, security and reduce its environmental impact

Available communication technologies can be considered as foundations for yet-to-emerge smart grid communication technologies that will truly answer the needs of the smart grid

More research is needed to overcome the challenges of communication in the smart grid environment

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Thanks for your attention!