5G technology to help the development of smart grids: A review

Abstract

The continuous advancement of technology has led to an increase in electricity consumption by residential, industrial, commercial, and other users in all aspects, and the demand for electricity quality is also increasing. In such a context, the smart grid is regarded as a new generation of power systems. The smart grid uses advanced communication and information processing, remote automatic control, and other technologies to achieve precise control of fault removal, three-dimensional monitoring of the system and optimal dispatch of electrical energy; while ensuring that the reliability of the power supply can be maintained even when a variety of uncontrollable renewable energy sources and a large number of new electricity loads are connected. Smart upgrades require strong communication systems to support them, and the characteristics of 5G technology perfectly match the various needs of smart grids for wireless communication, which is why 5G is widely studied. This paper is a review of the use of 5G technology in smart grids. Firstly, an overview of wireless communication in smart grids is given, and then the three main scenarios for the use of 5G and various grid services are adapted. This is followed by a summary of the problems and under-researched areas in the use of 5G in smart grids. In the end, the current advanced solutions are summarised and analyzed, and it is determined that the most urgent issues to be addressed in the use of 5G in smart grids are the confidentiality of critical data, network anti-attack capability, and other security guarantees. There is also further value in the use of big data to calculate the optimization of energy dispatch solutions. In general, its development prospects are quite optimistic.