Home Area Network Research Articles

Optimizations of Power Consumption and Supply in the Smart Grid: Analysis of the Impact of Data Communication Reliability

Data communications infrastructure will play an important role to transfer various information in smart grid. In this paper, we consider the reliability of the smart grid data communications infrastructure and its impact on the power consumption and supply optimizations. For optimizing the power consumption, we consider a deferrable load scheduling method which is modeled by using a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) model, taking into account the unavailability of the home area network (HAN) and neighborhood area network (NAN) gateways. For optimizing the power supply, we consider an economic dispatch method which is modeled by using stochastic programming (SP), taking into account the unavailability of the exact power demand and supply information. The power consumption and supply costs are analyzed. In addition, we show how these costs can be reduced through the deployment of component redundancy in the smart grid data communications infrastructure.

Smart Grid Intelligent Load Management Modeling and Analysis for Residential Colony Using FEDRP

This Smart Grid network in relation with incentive based Demand Response (DR) programs have forced policy makers and power supplying agencies towards challenging positions to prioritize initiatives for future developments in liberalized power market. To augment demand side participation fully during emergency or peak hours has put whole sale dealers, retailers and utilities in a demanding position. The article understudy focuses on complete analysis and modeling of wide area residential society in context with fixed and time variant demands. The paper introduces the fairness concept in existing emergency demand response program for increased customer participation in way that suits it for home area networks. As the fairness is incorporated by providing attractive packages, the peak demand has been reduced and shifted in off peak periods intelligently for flattening the load curve and developing best load management scenario. This article develops new idea of fair peak demand response program for residential community in non-autonomous operational mode and introducing competitive picture among supplying agencies for increased utility revenues. Data from local grid in first analyzed for proposed scheme and then selected classes of people in a residential community are modeled in MATLAB/Simulink

Design and implementation of a bidirectional isolated DAB-based DC/DC converter for battery system

A home area network (HAN) incorporating a high-power high-efficiency charging/discharging battery system is capable of executing energy saving strategies in the smart grid, such as TOU or DR. This paper presents a bidirectional isolated DAB-based DC/DC converter for a Li+Fe battery system in the HAN. Battery energy is controlled by the phase angle between the primary bridge and the secondary bridge of the converter. Theoretical analysis and control implementation are described. A LABVIEW-based prototype is established to verify effectiveness.

Smart grid cooperative communication with smart relay

Many studies have investigated the smart grid architecture and communication models in the past few years. However, the communication model and architecture for a smart grid still remain unclear. Today's electric power distribution is very complex and maladapted because of the lack of efficient and cost-effective energy generation, distribution, and consumption management systems. A wireless smart grid communication system can playan important role in achieving these goals. In thispaper, we describe a smart grid communication architecture in which we merge customers and distributors into a single domain. In the proposed architecture, all the home area networks, neighborhood area networks, and local electrical equipment form a local wireless mesh network (LWMN). Each device or meter can act as a source, router, or relay. The data generated in any node (device/meter) reaches the data collector via other nodes. The data collector transmits this data via the access point of a wide area network (WAN). Finally, data is transferred to the service provider or to the control center of the smart grid. We propose a wireless cooperative communication model for the LWMN. We deploy a limited number of smart relays to improve the performance of the network. A novel relay selection mechanism is also proposed to reduce the relay selection overhead. Simulation results show that our cooperative smart grid (coopSG) communication model improves the end-to-end packet delivery latency, throughput, and energy efficiency over both the Wang et al. and Niyato et al. models.

Gigabit Receiver Over 1 mm SI-POF For Home Area Networks

A novel receiver front-end is proposed for short-range optical communications over low-cost polymer optical fiber and, in particular, for home area networks. This paper focuses on the experimental verification of the IC prototype POFchip-II, implemented in a standard 0.18- <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\mu$</tex> </formula> m CMOS technology plus a commercial Si-PIN photodetector and a 1 mm step-index plastic optical fiber (POF) transmission channel. A 1.25 Gb/s data transmission rate is attained for POF lengths ranging from 10 to 50 m thanks to a continuous-time adaptive equalizer included in the receiver chain that compensates the limited and length-dependent speed of POF. The measured sensitivity of the receiver leads to an eye-safety approach up to almost 30 m reach.

Secure wireless monitoring and control systems for smart grid and smart home

Secure and efficient communication between human being and managed devices is critical for Smart Grid and Smart Home. This article considers the architecture and design of a secure access gateway (SAG) for home area networks. The SAG serves as the interface between the remote users and the managed devices, such that real-time secure monitoring and control of the devices can be achieved through a Smart Phone. We try to address the security and capacity challenges using multilayer techniques. Security enhancement is ensured through network layer protocol development, as well as inherently secure physical layer transceiver design. Capacity improvement is achieved using dynamic resource management. Remote monitoring and control of home/office devices through a Smart Phone is coming closer to us more than ever before.

Radiofrequency fields associated with the Itron smart meter

This study examined radiofrequency (RF) emissions from smart electric power meters deployed in two service territories in California for the purpose of evaluating potential human exposure. These meters included transmitters operating in a local area mesh network (RF LAN, ∼250 mW); a cell relay, which uses a wireless wide area network (WWAN, ∼1 W); and a transmitter serving a home area network (HAN, ∼70 mW). In all instances, RF fields were found to comply by a wide margin with the RF exposure limits established by the US Federal Communications Commission. The study included specialised measurement techniques and reported the spatial distribution of the fields near the meters and their duty cycles (typically <1 %) whose value is crucial to assessing time-averaged exposure levels. This study is the first to characterise smart meters as deployed. However, the results are restricted to a single manufacturer's emitters.

Electric vehicles charger as a part of home area network

With increasing oil price and environment pollution, especially in large cities, electric vehicles are getting to be more interesting than they were several years ago. Using electric vehicles in cities and large agglomerations lead to less pollution caused by common cars combustion engines (nitrogen oxides, carbon oxides, dust particles). Electric vehicles are more considerate to the environment than traditional cars even when the energy produced by non-renewable energy resources is used for their charging. The lack of the infrastructure prevents electric vehicles spreading. This paper describes standards and ideas how to integrate electric vehicle charger to the home area network. Home area network is a local part of SmartGrid network usually situated in homes. All devices connected to this network should implement several specifications. Basic requirements to charger properties are summarized.

Lessons Learnt from CLP's Smart Meter Pilot

The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) connects every day physical objects via Internet Protocols. Smart metering is an implementation of IoT in the energy sector. CLP Power Hong Kong (CLP) launched the 18-month smart metering pilot, named myEnegry Program, in May 2013. The key objectives were to investigate the costs, benefits, and challenges of implementing the smart metering integrated platform, such as seeing if customers are interested in tools and services which can help them conserve energy and to find out if smart metering is technically feasible in Hong Kong's unique densely populated, high-rise environment. This study discusses the technical challenges encountered with networks near customers’ end, namely Neighbourhood Area Network and Home Area Network. Making use of high mobile penetration rates in Hong Kong, user-friendly web portals and mobile apps were designed to allow customers to track their electricity consumption anytime anywhere. Furthermore, CLP paid considerable effort in maintaining cyber security for the network and its data. The myEnergy Program was a rewarding experience for both CLP and its customers, providing many technical lessons learned as Hong Kong begins its journey to a Smart City and embraces IoT.

Network Architecture, Security Issues, and Hardware Implementation of a Home Area Network for Smart Grid

This paper discusses aims, architecture, and security issues of Smart Grid, taking care of the lesson learned at University of Pisa in research projects on smart energy and grid. A key element of Smart Grid is the energy home area network (HAN), for which an implementation is proposed, dealing with its security aspects and showing some solutions for realizing a wireless network based on ZigBee. Possible hardware-software architectures and implementations using COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) components are presented for key building blocks of the energy HAN such as smart power meters and plugs and a home smart information box providing energy management policy and supporting user's energy awareness.

Merged Search Algorithms for Radio Frequency Identification Anticollision

Nowadays, the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system enables the control of many devices over an open communication infrastructure ranging from a small home area network to the global Internet. Moreover, a variety of consumer products are tagged with remotely low‐cost readable identification electromagnetic tags to replace Bar Codes. Applications such as automatic object tracking, inventory and supply chain management, and Web appliances were adopted for years in many companies. The arbitration algorithm for RFID system is used to arbitrate all the tags to avoid the collision problem with the existence of multiple tags in the interrogation field of a transponder. A splitting algorithm which is called Binary Search Tree (BST) is well known for multitags arbitration. In the current study, a splitting‐based schema called Merged Search Tree is proposed to capture identification codes correctly for anticollision. Performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the original BST according to time and power consumed during the arbitration process. The results show that the proposed model can reduce searching time and power consumed to achieve a better performance arbitration.

Secure communication mechanism for ubiquitous Smart grid infrastructure

Smart grid and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) technologies have recently been the focus of rapid advancement and significant investment by many utilities and other service providers. For proper Smart grid deployment, smart energy home area network (HAN) must deploy smart meter along with other utility HAN devices and customer HAN devices. Energy service interface (ESI) is deployed as a HAN gateway which can provide two-way communications between HAN devices and utilities or service providers. However, in order to meet the envisioned functional, reliability, and scalability requirements of the Smart grid, cyber security must no longer be neglected. Thus, the development of a comprehensive security mechanism for AMI network is predominantly essential. A remote access to HAN devices may be required for either the customer that using his ubiquitous mobile device at the remote site or maintenance personals (either from utilities or service providers) those using handheld devices, which must be done securely. In this paper, we propose a security mechanism for remote access to HAN networks which is comprised of a lightweight and effective ECC-based entity authentication mechanism and ECC-based digital signature scheme. ECC-based entity authentication mechanism allows ESI as a gatekeeper to monitor the authentication process between two communicating entities. With a modified ECC-based digital signature scheme, secure data transfer between mobile devices and HAN devices has occurred. We have conducted security analysis, efficiency analysis as well as formal verification of the proposed mechanism.

Distributed Intrusion Detection System in a Multi-Layer Network Architecture of Smart Grids

The advent of the smart grid promises to usher in an era that will bring intelligence, efficiency, and optimality to the power grid. Most of these changes will occur as an Internet-like communications network is superimposed on top of the current power grid using wireless mesh network technologies with the 802.15.4, 802.11, and WiMAX standards. Each of these will expose the power grid to cybersecurity threats. In order to address this issue, this work proposes a distributed intrusion detection system for smart grids (SGDIDS) by developing and deploying an intelligent module, the analyzing module (AM), in multiple layers of the smart grid. Multiple AMs will be embedded at each level of the smart grid-the home area networks (HANs), neighborhood area networks (NANs), and wide area networks (WANs)-where they will use the support vector machine (SVM) and artificial immune system (AIS) to detect and classify malicious data and possible cyberattacks. AMs at each level are trained using data that is relevant to their level and will also be able to communicate in order to improve detection. Simulation results demonstrate that this is a promising methodology for supporting the optimal communication routing and improving system security through the identification of malicious network traffic.

Cognitive radio based hierarchical communications infrastructure for smart grid

The current centrally controlled power grid is undergoing a drastic change in order to deal with increasingly diversified challenges, including environment and infrastructure. The next-generation power grid, known as the smart grid, will be realized with proactive usage of state-of-the-art technologies in the areas of sensing, communications, control, computing, and information technology. In a smart power grid, an efficient and reliable communication architecture plays a crucial role in improving efficiency, sustainability, and stability. In this article, we first identify the fundamental challenges in the data communications for the smart grid and introduce the ongoing standardization effort in the industry. Then we present an unprecedented cognitive radio based communications architecture for the smart grid, which is mainly motivated by the explosive data volume, diverse data traffic, and need for QoS support. The proposed architecture is decomposed into three subareas: cognitive home area network, cognitive neighborhood area network, and cognitive wide area network, depending on the service ranges and potential applications. Finally, we focus on dynamic spectrum access and sharing in each subarea. We also identify a very unique challenge in the smart grid, the necessity of joint resource management in the decomposed NAN and WAN geographic subareas in order to achieve network scale performance optimization. Illustrative results indicate that the joint NAN/WAN design is able to intelligently allocate spectra to support the communication requirements in the smart grid.

A 60 GHz Wireless Home Area Network With Radio Over Fiber Repeaters

Home area networks will have to deal with the future multigigabit wireless systems that are emerging or are under development . These millimeter-wave radio systems achieve data rates up to several Gb/s per channel, but over short distance. So, to expand the radio coverage, we propose to introduce a radio-over-fiber (RoF) infrastructure at home. This paper presents a complete study of a RoF system: the 60 GHz radio coverage is extended using a RoF link working at intermediate frequency with two hops in the air. An experimental setup of such an infrastructure has been realized and characterized. A low-cost solution, working at 850 nm, was chosen using multimode fiber and off-the-shelf millimeter-wave and photonic components. Finally, a real-time transmission between two commercial WirelessHD devices working at 3 Gb/s has been carried out.

How people use thermostats in homes: A review

Residential thermostats control a substantial portion of both fuel and electrical energy—9% of the total energy consumption in the U.S. Consumers install programmable thermostats to save energy, yet numerous recent studies found that homes with programmable thermostats can use more energy than those controlled manually depending on how—or if—they are used. At the same time, thermostats are undergoing a dramatic increase in capability and features, including control of ventilation, responding to electricity price signals, and interacting with a home area network. These issues warrant a review of the current state of thermostats, evaluating their effectiveness in providing thermal comfort and energy savings, and identifying areas for further improvement or research. This review covers the evolution in technologies of residential thermostats; we found few standards and many features. We discuss studies of how people currently use thermostats, finding that nearly half do not use the programming features. The review covers the complications associated with using a thermostat. Finally, we suggest research needed to design—and especially test with users—thermostats that can provide more comfortable and economical indoor environments.

High-Assurance Smart Grid: A Three-Part Model for Smart Grid Control Systems

As electrical grids evolve through the introduction of additional “smart” sensors, actuators, and control systems, cybersecurity becomes an ever more significant factor, necessitating the incorporation of Information Assurance principles throughout the electrical system-from central station power generating facilities, through transmission and distribution systems, to building management systems, distributed generation, home area networks, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A precursor to determining the appropriate controls for any particular device within this complex system is to determine the trust model (or untrusted condition) within which the device exists. This paper, then, sets out to define a multilevel framework for an architecture to be used throughout the electrical system-a High-Assurance Smart Grid architecture that incorporates three core attributes: 1) categorizes cybersecurity requirements based on a multi-tier determination of a subsystem's potential impact on the overall system; 2) implements a robust defense-in-depth cybersecurity architecture; 3) implements a distributed rather than hierarchical control system architecture based on an assumed compromise (untrusted condition) of system control components and subsystems using autoresponsive (AR) load control wherever possible.

Wireless Sensor Networks for Cost-Efficient Residential Energy Management in the Smart Grid

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) will play a key role in the extension of the smart grid towards residential premises, and enable various demand and energy management applications. Efficient demand-supply balance and reducing electricity expenses and carbon emissions will be the immediate benefits of these applications. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of an in-home energy management (iHEM) application. The performance of iHEM is compared with an optimization-based residential energy management (OREM) scheme whose objective is to minimize the energy expenses of the consumers. We show that iHEM decreases energy expenses, reduces the contribution of the consumers to the peak load, reduces the carbon emissions of the household, and its savings are close to OREM. On the other hand, iHEM application is more flexible as it allows communication between the controller and the consumer utilizing the wireless sensor home area network (WSHAN). We evaluate the performance of iHEM under the presence of local energy generation capability, prioritized appliances, and for real-time pricing. We show that iHEM reduces the expenses of the consumers for each case. Furthermore, we show that packet delivery ratio, delay, and jitter of the WSHAN improve as the packet size of the monitoring applications, that also utilize the WSHAN, decreases.

Toward intelligent machine-to-machine communications in smart grid

The advanced metering infrastructure of the smart grid presents the biggest growth potential in the machine-to-machine market today. Spurred by recent advances in M2M technologies, SG smart meters are expected not to require human intervention in characterizing power requirements and energy distribution. However, there are many challenges in the design of the SG communications network whereby the electrical appliances and smart meters are able to exchange information pertaining to varying power requirements. Furthermore, different types of M2M gateways are required at different points (e.g., at home, in the building, at the neighborhood, and so forth) of the SG communication network. This article surveys a number of existing communication technologies that can be adopted for M2M communication in SG. Among these, the most reliable technology to facilitate M2M communication in the SG home area network is pointed out, and its shortcoming is also noted. Furthermore, a possible solution to deal with this shortcoming to improve SG communications scalability is also presented.

Demand side resource operation on the Irish power system with high wind power penetration

The utilisation of demand side resources is set to increase over the coming years with the advent of advanced metering infrastructure, home area networks and the promotion of increased energy efficiency. Demand side resources are proposed as an energy resource that, through aggregation, can form part of the power system plant mix and contribute to the flexible operation of a power system. A model for demand side resources is proposed here that captures its key characteristics for commitment and dispatch calculations. The model is tested on the all island Irish power system, and the operation of the model is simulated over one year in both a stochastic and deterministic mode, to illustrate the impact of wind and load uncertainty. The results illustrate that demand side resources can contribute to the efficient, flexible operation of systems with high penetrations of wind by replacing some of the functions of conventional peaking plant. Demand side resources are also shown to be capable of improving the reliability of the system, with reserve capability identified as a key requirement in this respect.