Smart Grid Communication System Research Articles

AP-HBSG: Authentication protocol for heterogeneous blockchain-based smart grid environment

The smart grid (SG) is one of the largest Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Therefore, it encompasses a variety of smart objects, including smart appliances, smart meters, and sensors, among others. All of these devices are scattered throughout the SG to serve a variety of objectives. As a result, the SG network architecture is exposed to various security threats. Furthermore, numerous authentication and key agreement techniques have been developed throughout the years to protect the communication between entities. However, several of them are homogeneous protocols, which means that only entities running similar cryptographic schemes can communicate. In addition, the SG communication system is centralized and susceptible to a single point of failure and management. Moreover, the existing protocols involve extensive cryptographic elements that cannot be processed by a smart meter’s (SM) computing power. To address the aforementioned issues, an AP-HBSG: authentication protocol for heterogeneous blockchain-based smart grid environment is designed. The designed protocol operates in a decentralized environment, thus eliminating a single point of failure and management. Furthermore, a blind signature is applied to the blockchain network to add authentication security among blockchain nodes. In addition, AP-HBSG is lightweight and it fits the SM computing capability. Moreover, AP-HBSG can protect the communication of parties interacting in a heterogeneous environment. On the other hand, the security of the presented protocol is analyzed in the random oracle model (ROM) and proved under the elliptic curve discrete logarithm (ECDL) problem and the computational Diffie–Hellman (CDH) problem. The protocol’s performance analysis shows that, compared to the most recent protocols, ours has lower communication and computation costs. The computation cost (ms) is 122,68, 216.86, 391.34, and 92.01 for WHZS, KKN, WLCTA, and ours, respectively. On the other hand, the communication cost (bytes) is 344, 184, 568, and 182 for WHZS, KKN, WLCTA, and ours, respectively.

A novel efficient and lightweight authentication scheme for secure smart grid communication systems

A novel efficient and lightweight authentication scheme for secure smart grid communication systems

An Optimal Model for Power Quality Improvement in Smart Grid using Gravitational Search-based Proportional Integral Controller and Node Microcontroller Unit

In recent years, the Intervention of information and communication technology creates a major impact on various disciplines like electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. In acceding to that, the revision of the conventional grid to the smart grid is a challenging chore for numerous developing countries. In smart grid communication systems, there exist various power quality issues namely voltage sags, swells, and harmonics and it is necessary to minimize such power quality issues. Therefore, this article proposes smart monitoring in a smart grid (SMSG) system. The efficient SMSG system is proposed for monitoring load current, source current and harmonics present in the source. In addition to this, a designing of shunt active power filter (SAPF) with proportional integral (PI) controller is tuned by gravitational search algorithm for harmonic mitigation. For recognizing the quality of Electricity from the smart grid, the SMSG system monitors the total harmonic distortion (THD) before and after accomplishing SAPF. The Wi-Fi-based node microcontroller unit (NodeMCU) module is considered the most significant SMSG component that monitors the power quality under the firebase cloud environment. The simulation of SAPF was enacted by MATLAB 2016a and the hardware setup for the three-phase source current has experimented with NodeMCU. Finally, the performance of the system is analyzed for various non-linear loads with THD monitored in the Firebase cloud.

A Review of the Smart Grid Communication Technologies in Contactless Charging with Vehicle to Grid Integration Technology

Power needs to be transferred from the source to the load (electric vehicle). Transmitting electricity through the air gap for charging using electromagnetic waves as one of the smart grid technologies called Wireless Power Transfer (WPT), or Inductive Power Transfer. This paper presents the fulfilment of future gird that addresses the issues of Greenhouse Gas emission, and transportation and industries emissions known as the smart grid with a complex system. The complexity of the smart grid communication system is the motivation to be an open area of research issue. The main contribution of this paper is to close the gap between this research and other researches by delivering a comprehensive review and update the recent state-of-the-art of smart grid communication technologies with the integration of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology using the contactless charging method. Smart grid communication technologies with their pros and cons, topologies of wireless communication, challenges of the V2G, WPT challenges, and standards are discussed. Therefore, this study is expected to be a significant guide to engineers and researchers studying in the field of smart grid communication technologies and contactless charging for electric vehicles.

Smart Grid Communication System based on OTN Technology

With the rapid development of society, the social demand for electricity is increasing day by day, which puts forward higher requirements for the power communication network, which makes the application effect of optical transmission network technology gradually significant. In view of the characteristics and functions of optical transmission network (OTN), continuous extension and expansion are carried out to realize the gradual integration of smart grid communication system. Based on this, this paper studies the smart grid communication system based on OTN technology. Based on the analysis of the characteristics and key technologies of OTN technology, combined with the communication requirements of smart grid communication system, the specific application of OTN technology in smart grid communication system is studied, and the application of OTN technology in power communication network is taken as the experimental group Finally, the application of OTN technology in power communication network is explored. The results show that the average score of the experimental group is 3.3 higher than that of the control group in terms of service adaptability, service demand satisfaction and intelligent level of communication network. Therefore, it is very necessary to establish the backbone optical transmission network of power communication by using OTN technology, so as to provide guarantee for the safe and stable operation of smart grid.

3AS: Authentication, Authorization, and Accountability for SDN-Based Smart Grids

Smart grid refers to the advancement of the current electric grid with the help of information and communication technologies. In such scenarios, an efficient and secure smart grid communication system is essential. Accordingly, Software-Defined Networks (SDN) have been gaining more prominence for smart grids in recent years, as this paradigm allows monitoring and managing these communication networks efficiently. An example is the Autonomic and Resilient Framework for Smart Grids (ARES). ARES allows integration between the supervisory system and the SDN controller, allowing for better energy applications. Although ARES emphasizes the need for security as a premise for its implementation, it does not provide a concrete implementation of this aspect. In this work, we provide an extensive review of the related literature about Authentication, Authorization, and Accountability (AAA) for smart grids, classifying approaches according to several relevant characteristics. We further propose 3AS, extending the ARES framework with a security component based on the IEEE 802.1X standard. 3AS has been implemented on the Ryu SDN controller and evaluated in an emulated environment. Results indicate 3AS successfully provides authentication, authorization, and accountability with low control load and delay, thus being suitable for diverse smart grid scenarios.

A Review of Cognitive Radio Smart Grid Communication Infrastructure Systems

The cognitive smart grid (SG) communication paradigm aims to mitigate quality of service (QoS) issues in obsolete communication architecture associated with the conventional electrical grid. This paradigm entails the integration of advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) into power grids, enabling a two-way flow of information. However, due to the exponential increase in wireless applications and services, also driven by the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) smart devices, SG communication systems are expected to handle large volumes of data. As a result, the operation of SG networks is confronted with the major challenge of managing and processing data in a reliable and secure manner. The existing works in the literature proposed architectures with the objective to mitigate the underlying QoS issues such as latency, bandwidth, data congestion, energy efficiency, etc. In addition, a variety of communication technologies have been analyzed for their capacity to support stringent QoS requirements for diverse SGs environments. This notwithstanding, a standard architecture designed to mitigate the aforementioned issues for SG networks remains a work-in-progress. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the emerging technologies such as cognitive radio networks (CRNs) as part of the Fifth-Generation (5G) mobile technology for reliable communication in SG networks. Furthermore, a hybrid architecture based on the combination of fog computing and cloud computing is proposed. In this architecture, real-time latency-sensitive information is given high priority, with fog edge based servers deployed in close proximity to home area networks (HANs) for preprocessing and analyzing of information collected from smart IoT devices. In comparison to the recent works in the literature, which are mainly based on CRNs and 5G separately, the proposed architecture in this paper incorporates the combination of CRNs and 5G for reliable and efficient communication in SG networks.

Risk Element Identification of Grid Communication System Based on Improved Bayesian Network under SG and UPIOT

Now, Smart Grid and Ubiquitous Power Internet of Things are booming in China. The degree of coupling between the grid and the power communication system determines the degree of development of Smart Grid and Ubiquitous Electric Internet of Things. The rapid growth of Smart Grid has resulted in the risk transfer of Smart Grid Communication Systems with many levels and a strong correlation of indicators. This paper sorts out the risk indicators and provides a three-layer risk transfer network considering equipment, environment, business and operational dimension. Moreover, the triangular fuzzy number and DS evidence theory are used to assign the Bayesian network root node probability. At last, this paper identifies the risk element of SGCS and proposes preventive measures.

A New Secure and Anonymous Metering Scheme for Smart Grid Communications

The smart meter is one of the most important components of the smart grid, which enables bi-directional communication between electric power providers and in-home appliances. However, the fine-grained metering mechanism that reports real-time electricity usage to the provider may result in some privacy and security issues for the owner of the smart meter. In this paper, we propose a new secure and anonymous smart metering scheme based on the technique of direct anonymous attestation and identity-based signatures. We utilize the trusted platform module to realize the tamper resistance of the smart meter. Moreover, our scheme is able to detect malfunctioning meters in which data is reported more than once in a time period. Finally, the performance and security results show that our proposed scheme is efficient and satisfies the security requirements of the smart grid communication system.

Smart Grid Network With D2D Communication and Coherent PLC: Error Analysis

In this paper, we consider a hybrid smart grid communication network consisting of power line communication (PLC) at the transmitter side and the device-to-device (D2D) cellular communication on the receiver side which provides last mile connectivity. The PLC channel is assumed to experience Rayleigh fading and is corrupted by impulsive noise, and the D2D communication being a short range communication system, is assumed to experience Nakagami- $m$ fading with additive Gaussian noise. We propose a maximal-ratio combining (MRC) receiver for the considered hybrid smart grid communication system employing binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation at the transmitter and derive a closed-form symbol error probability (SEP) expression for the proposed receiver. The interference between the D2D links is assumed to be negligible for the tractability of the error probability analysis. Numerical results demonstrate the optimality of operating the D2D links at lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values to overcome the effect of the impulsive PLC channel by utilizing diversity branches.

Cost-efficient approximation algorithm for aggregation points planning in smart grid communications

Smart grid is in need of an efficient communication network to guarantee reliable two-way data transmission between the control center and smart meters (SMs). In this work, a software-defined networking (SDN) based smart grid communication (SGC) scheme is introduced to fulfill the information transmission requirement, where the control plane is separated from the data plane to support diverse services flexibly in the smart grid. In such an SDN-based SGC system, to guarantee effective data processing and forwarding between the SMs and the control center, aggregation points (APs) are introduced. These APs should be deployed in an optimal way so as to cut down the total capital expenditure of the SGC system. The total cost generally includes the transmission cost between APs and the control center as well as APs and SMs. The construction and maintenance cost of the APs is also included. An approximation algorithm is introduced in this paper. The algorithm can deal with the formulated intractable APs planning task and produce performance-guaranteed solutions with reasonable complexity. Experiments indicate that the proposed algorithm works well for geographical areas with different densities of SMs. Our proposal yields cost-efficient APs deployment scheme and sheds insight into the reduction of the capital expenditure of the SGC system.

Towards insider threats detection in smart grid communication systems

In today's communication systems, the most damaging security threats are not originating from the outsiders but from the trusted insiders - both malicious insiders and negligent insiders. Always endowed with high privileges, insiders are significantly prone to conduct acts that can cause catastrophic damages to the whole system either intentionally or unintentionally. Characterised by the full and rapid integration of information and communication technologies, smart grid - arguably the largest national critical engineering infrastructure - is suffering from a multitude of security threats initiated from both outsiders and insiders. Without security guarantee, the promising benefits of achieving an efficient, green, and reliable power grid would not be a success. In this study, the authors investigate the insider threats and summarise the existing threats detection solutions in smart grid communication systems. In addition, a novel hybrid insider threats modelling, analysis, and detection framework, which is based on stochastic Petri net and behaviour rule specifications, is proposed to contain insider threats in smart grid communication systems.

Smart Grid Network Resource Scheduling Algorithm Based on Network Calculus

Smart grid technology is further developed on the basis of distributed power grids and micro-grids. The communications network is an indispensable part of the smart grid. How to achieve real-time accurate transmission of various types of smart information is a technical guarantee for smart grids. This paper analyze data of smart grid bases on the demand of net resource, and adopts the idea of priority scheduling to draw on the advantages of integrated services and differentiated services to design a time-sharing polling scheduling strategy. In this strategy, the algorithm classify the network data, Using network calculus theory to analyze the optimal length of the queue satisfying the upper bound of delay, According to the degree of network congestion perception, the credibility of the data is calculated, and non-adaptive flows are quickly identified. The strategy ensure that the data is able to transfer to the user quickly and lively depend on its needs, So ensure the real-time transmission of energy supply & consumption information of active distribution network, realize multi-source collaborative optimization scheduling and distributed hierarchical intelligent control management. The algorithm can effectively ensure the demand of high-priority services, making the overall performance of the smart grid communication system data such as real-time and accuracy optimized.

Smart Grid R&D Planning Based on Patent Analysis

A smart grid employs information and communications technology to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of electricity production and distribution. The convergent and complex nature of a smart grid and the multifarious connection between its individual technology components, as well as competition between private companies, which will exert substantial influences on the future smart grid business, make a strategic approach necessary from the beginning of research and development (R&D) planning with collaborations among various research groups and from national, industry, company, and detailed technological levels. However, the strategic, technological, business environmental, and regulatory barriers between various stakeholders with collaborative or sometimes conflictive interests need to be clarified for a breakthrough in the smart grid field. A strategic R&D planning process was developed in this study to accomplish the complicated tasks, which comprises five steps: (i) background research of smart grid industry; (ii) selection of R&D target; (iii) societal, technological, economical, environmental, and political (STEEP) analysis to obtain a macro-level perspective and insight for achieving the selected R&D target; (iv) patent analysis to explore capabilities of the R&D target and to select the entry direction for smart grid industry; and, (v) nine windows and scenario planning analyses to develop a method and process in establishing a future strategic R&D plan. This R&D planning process was further applied to the case of a Korean company holding technological capabilities in the sustainable smart grid domain, as well as in the sustainable electric vehicle charging system, a global consumer market of smart grid. Four plausible scenarios were produced by varying key change agents for the results of this process, such as technology and growth rates, policies and government subsidies, and system standards of the smart grid charging system: Scenario 1, ‘The Stabilized Settlement of the Smart Grid Industry’; Scenario 2, ‘The Short-lived Blue Ocean of the Smart Grid Industry’; Scenario 3, ‘The Questionable Market of the Smart Grid’; and, Scenario 4, ‘The Stalemate of the Smart Grid Industry’. The R&D plan suggestions were arranged for each scenario and detailed ways to cope with dissonant situations were also implied for the company. In sum, in this case study, a future strategic R&D plan was suggested in regard to the electric vehicle charging technology business, which includes smart grid communication system, battery charging duration, service infrastructure, public charge station system, platform and module, wireless charging, data management system, and electric system solution. The strategic R&D planning process of this study can be applicable in various technologies and business fields, because of no inherent dependency on particular subject, like electric vehicle charging technology based on smart grid.

Software Defined Networks-Based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid also known as, smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication (SGC) system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SGC system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. By separating the control plane from the data plane, SDN helps the network operators to manage the network flexibly. Since SG heavily relies on communication networks, therefore, SDN has also paved its way into the SG. By applying SDN in SG systems, efficiency and resiliency can potentially be improved. SDN, with its programmability, protocol independence, and granularity features, can help the SG to integrate different SG standards and protocols, to cope with diverse communication systems, and to help SG to perform traffic flow orchestration and to meet specific SG quality of service requirements. This paper serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this paper, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDN-based SGC. We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. This paper provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.

Dynamic Pricing Mechanism in Smart Grid Communications Is Shaping Up

An efficient smart grid communication system is a key enabling technology for modernized utility that can adjust electricity usage to balance generation and demand in real time. However, the utility industry is not able to meet the power demand for the wholesale market during overloading or emergency situations. To mitigate power shortage pressures, utility providers need to employ a dynamic pricing policy to enforce higher pricing than pre-estimated statistic pricing to motivate consumers to reduce their power consumption. In this letter, the time of use (TOU) approach is proposed to regulate price variances considering desired power demand. In this mechanism, the consumers deliver their TOU electricity demands and subsequent control signals to utility providers through communication network infrastructure. The utility provider creates an hourly demand profile for each consumer by predicating individual requests over short- and long-time frames. The control signaling exchanged and prior arrangement of services enable utility providers to evaluate the status of wholesale market demand and assign prices considering dynamic changes in electricity demand. Numerical analysis study was carried out to validate the advantages of the proposed mechanism.

Sleep Mechanism of Base Station Based on Minimum Energy Cost

Deploying dense network is a promising technique of fifth-generation communication to meet the challenge of soaring demand from explosive growth of mobile users. However, this technique obviously increases the power consumption, thereby indirectly causing heavy financial burden on mobile network operators and CO2 emission, which is considered as a major threat to the environment. In consideration of energy storage device, self-discharge effect, and preventing repeated switch (PRS) mechanism, a comprehensive power management model for wireless communication system in smart grid is investigated in this study from the power consumption and economic cost aspects. Two base sleep mechanisms, namely, energy cost first (ECF) algorithm and power consumption first (PCF) algorithm, are proposed. The ECF algorithm focuses on the minimum cost of system operation by selecting the low-cost energy scheme. Meanwhile, the PCF algorithm considers the minimum power consumption first and then optimizes the cost. Compared with conventional scheme, simulation results show that the two proposed algorithms can decrease the energy cost of communication base system significantly. Setting an energy storage device can further stabilize the energy cost, while the switching frequency can be reduced to a large extent when combined with the PRS mechanism.

Spectrum access in cognitive smart-grid communication system with prioritized traffic

Smart grid (SG) comprises heterogeneous characteristics of traffic such as control commands (safety, sensing, smart-meter readings) among power generation, transmission and end users. An effective and reliable two-way communication infrastructure between users and utility providers is important for improving the performance of smart grid. To support such traffic types in the smart grid, we have studied cognitive radio communication infrastructure-based smart grid. In this paper, we proposed a prioritized spectrum access scheme for cognitive smart grid communication systems to address the quality of service (QoS) requirements of heterogeneous traffic. SG traffic is categorized into two priority classes (high and low based on service requirements). We model the proposed spectrum access scheme (by considering the spectrum sensing error) using a multidimensional Markov chain. We have measured the performance based on the blocking probability, the dropping probability, the interference probability and the call completion rate for both the traffic types (high and the low class smart grid traffic). By Considering an environment where the traffic is heavy tailed, we have modeled the arrivals to follow a Pareto distribution, as the Poisson process model may under estimate the traffic especially when traffic is heavy tailed. The results illustrate that the proposed priority based scheme is able to significantly improve the QoS of high-priority traffic. It is also observed that the prioritized system is preferable over the non-prioritized system where all traffic types are treated the same in terms of SG data delivery.

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN SMART GRID

In this paper a brief introduction is given about a smart grid and their associated communication technologies. This paper also gives details about different communication frameworks and their associated technologies. Comprehensive technologies related to communication issues are explained here related to smart grid. The given framework given can be useful for properly design a smart grid communication system. In this paper short description of three entities, communication oriented framework for the best communication network in the smart grid is explained.

Detection of False Data Injection Attacks in Smart Grid Communication Systems

The transformation of traditional energy networks to smart grids can assist in revolutionizing the energy industry in terms of reliability, performance and manageability. However, increased connectivity of power grid assets for bidirectional communications presents severe security vulnerabilities. In this letter, we investigate Chi-square detector and cosine similarity matching approaches for attack detection in smart grids where Kalman filter estimation is used to measure any deviation from actual measurements. The cosine similarity matching approach is found to be robust for detecting false data injection attacks as well as other attacks in the smart grids. Once the attack is detected, system can take preventive action and alarm the manager to take preventative action to limit the risk. Numerical results obtained from simulations corroborate our theoretical analysis.