COMMUNICATIONS AND SMART GRID

Building an Effective Communications Network

ECE 536 Microprocessor Applications Yiyang Wang Vasant Kumar Poonamalli

One of the most rapidly developing means to achieve energy independence - as well as energy savings, increased reliability and energy cost-savings is through a "smart grid," which updates traditional power grids by carrying electricity using digital technology. Smart grids essentially take an electricity grid and deliver to it communications and computer technology, so that suppliers can deliver electricity to consumers in a wider range of conditions, while also accommodating wind and solar power sources. Communication reliability and availability is crucial to any smart grid communications infrastructure solution. Choosing the right communication is the key to achieve true interoperability and the need to address the communication requirements early in the Smart Grid deployment. Building an Effective Communications network will help fulfill the following Flexibility of supporting multiple technologies Improved visibility into critical parts of network and take corrective action on possible outages or other challenges Reduce peak load of electrical demand by selectively turning off noncritical appliances in homes and businesses, reducing the cost of purchasing spot power Reduce operational costs and enhance employee productivity by using automation and making operations more efficient to fix electrical networks or to read meters Improve efficiency of powerline engineers and linemen Improve customer service and restore power to customers more quickly COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS AND PROTOCOLS: The need for improved monitoring, analysis, control, two- way communication and coverage is driving more complexity and growth in utility networks as they transition to Smart Grid. Currently, utilities have a large base of the traditional circuit-switched, Time-Division-Multiplexed (TDM) networks. To a Wide Area Network,which is an intergrated communications for Data transport,there is several features required to be taken care of. First of all,it is utility control center ,we need to make sure whether the smart grid is working correctly.It needs microprocessor to examine the energy management system,and monitor grid and control applications. Also,we need to obtain the utility data center, for storaging and analysising the data.It is also good for customers,because they have automatic meter reading,home area networks and demand response.Similarily,about the distributed energy resources,like distributed generation,from solar and wind,it can be used. The main processor is the DSP and ARM processor in communication of the smart grid.It is called C6l138 processor.The cpu cores is ARM926 and C674XDSP.They make power substantion control. Power monitoring and protection, common in substation automation and
equipments, gives remote operators the ability to monitor the functionality of substation electrical

equipment (e.g., circuit breakers, transformers, relays, etc.) via supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) capabilities at the substation. Therefore, equipment function and operation is monitored and controlled from a remote location where communication is via modem, high-speed communication lines, or fiber optic cables.

Microprocessor-based relays perform online monitoring and control operations, eliminating the need to have separate SCADA networks at multiple locations, which eliminates redundant sensors, wiring, and transducers. Traditional switchboards (i.e., panels, mechanical switches, red and green lights, etc.) are now replaced by a graphical user interface (GUI) accessible through a PC. The C674XDSP and ARM926 microcontrollers are ideal for processing sampled data and performing FFT type calculations efficiently in power monitoring and control applications, which require a large amount of data sampling and processing to detect the RMSs of current and voltage, real power, reactive power, harmonics, and high order harmonics. These processors are capable of reacting quickly to overload/over-current, over-voltage, and surge and sag conditions.

CONCLUSION: Managing vast amounts of data opens up new challenges for electric utilities. Simultaneous development of the smart grid's infrastructure and communication protocol is needed. What must be taken into account are the understanding of topology and emergent behaviors of the legacy and new power grid; then setting up 2-way communication network with complexity thinking in the background. Although interoperability is important, security measures that bar unauthorized intrusion must be considered hand-in-hand with the functional requirements of the enabling communications scheme. Choosing the right communications solution for a smart grid initiative is critical, but just as critical is recognizing that there may be no single right answer. The best solution may, in fact, be to build an architecture that is capable of supporting multiple technologies