Viability of powerline communication for the smart grid

Abstract

There is currently an ongoing debate surrounding what would be the best choice for smart grid communication technology. One of the promising communication technologies for smart grid realization is Powerline Communication (PLC). However, because of its noisy environment and the low capacity of Narrowband Powerline Communication, its viability for smart grid realization is being questioned. To investigate this issue, we studied smart grid communication network requirements. We categorize smart grid data traffic into two general traffic classes including home area network data traffic and distribution automation data traffic. Then using network simulator-2, we simulate powerline communication and a smart grid communication network. To have a better understanding of the viability of powerline communication for smart grid realization, some future smart grid advanced applications are considered. Latency and reliability are considered to be the main smart grid communication network requirements. In this paper, the delay of different traffic classes under different network infrastructures and traffic applications have been calculated. Furthermore, a viable powerline communication network infrastructure for smart grid communication network is proposed.