Sanjivani Rural Education Society’s

Sanjivani College of Engineering, Kopargaon-423 603

(An Autonomous Institute, Affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune)
NACC ‘A’ Grade Accredited, ISO 9001:2015 Certified

Department of Electrical Engineering

EE305B - Smart Grid

Prof. Dr.M.Sujith
Associate Professor
Email:[email protected]
Contact No: 9486820743

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 Unit-5 Communication Technology for Smart Grid

Course Objectives : To impart the knowledge about the communication

technology of Smart grid

Communication Technology- IEEE 802 series, Mobile communications

Multi-protocol label switching, Power line communication

Standard for information exchange - Standards for smart metering, Modbus,

DNP3, IEC 61850, Introduction to cyber security standards

Course Outcome : Select the suitable communication networks for smart

grid applications

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 Communication Technology

● The communication infrastructure of a power system typically consists of

SCADA systems with dedicated communication channels to and from the

System Control Centre and a Wide Area Network (WAN).

● The SCADA systems connect all the major power system operational
facilities, that is, the central generating stations, the transmission grid
substations and the primary distribution substations to the System Control
Centre.

● The WAN is used for corporate business and market operations

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● An essential development of the Smart Grid is to extend
communication throughout the distribution system and to establish
two-way communications with customers through Neighbourhood
Area Networks (NANs) covering the areas served by distribution
substations.

● Customers’ premises will have Home Area Networks (HANs). The

interface of the Home and Neighbourhood Area Networks will be
through a smart meter or smart interfacing device

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Possible communication infrastructure for the
Smart Grid

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 Technologies used in different sub-networks

Sub-network Communication technologies

HAN Ethernet, Wireless Ethernet, Power Line Carrier (PLC),
Broadband over Power Line (BPL), ZigBee
NAN PLC, BPL, Metro Ethernet, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL),
EDGE, High Speed.
Packet Access (HSPA), Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS), Long Term
Evolution, WiMax, Frame Relay.
WAN Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), LTE,
Frame Relay
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 IEEE 802 SERIES

● Support Local Area Networks (LANs)

● IEEE 802 standards are applicable to LANs in SCADA systems, NANs

around the distribution networks and HANs in consumers’ premises.

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IEEE 802 standards applicable to commonly used
communication technologies

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 Architecture of IEEE 802

ISO- International organization of

Standardization.

OSI-Open Systems Interconnection

● A packet from the Source enters the Logical Link Control (LLC) sublayer
which acts as an interface between the network layer and the MAC
sublayer.

● The LLC sublayer is defined by IEEE 802.2 and provides multiplexing

mechanisms, flow control and error control

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● The packet then passes into the MAC sublayer.

● At the medium access control (MAC) sublayer, a header and a trailer

(depending on the LAN which the packet is entering) are added to the packet.

● Then it goes through the physical layer and the communication channel and

reaches the Bridge.

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● At the MAC layer of the Bridge, the header and trailer are removed and the

original packet is recovered and passes to the LLC sublayer of the Bridge.

● Then the packet is processed (by adding an appropriate header and trailer) for

the LAN to which it is forwarded (to the Destination) by the MAC layer.

● This use of a Bridge is essential as different LANs use different frame lengths and

speeds
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 IEEE 802 standards

● Ethernet

● Wireless LANs

● Bluetooth

● ZigBee and 6LoWPAN (Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks)

● Wimax

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 Ethernet

● Ethernet has become the most widely used network technology for wired LANs
due to its simplicity, ease of maintenance, ability to incorporate new
technologies and reliability and low cost of installation.

● Its baseband is defined in a number of standards such as 10BASE5, 10BASE2,

10BASE-T, 1BASE5, 100BASE-T, and so on. The first number that is, 1, 10
and 100, indicates the data rate in Mbps.

 Repeater
 Hub
 Bridge
 Switch
 Router

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 Ethernet

Device Description
Repeater A Repeater has two ports. Once it receives a signal, this is amplified to
eliminate any distortion (which has been introduced when it was travelling
through the communication channel) and forwarded to the output port.

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 Ethernet

Device Description
Hub A Hub is a multiport repeater which links multiple Ethernet
devices. A Hub passes the incoming signal to all the devices
connected to it .

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 Device Description

Bridge A Bridge has two ports and operates in the data link layer. It
transmits the incoming frame only if the channel to its
destination is free or the frame is a broadcast frame. Each port on a
bridge supports a full duplex operation
Switch A Switch is a multiport bridge. Unlike a hub, a Switch will not
broadcast frames across the entire network (unless it is a broadcast
frame), it only sends the frame to the intended ports.

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 Device Description

Router A Router is used as a gateway between a LAN and a WAN. A

Router makes intelligent decisions on how to route traffic. A Router
operates in the network layer

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A typical Ethernet LAN

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 Wireless LANs

● IEEE 802.11 describes the Wireless LAN (WLAN) standard.

Wireless LANs consist of the following components

● Station

● Access points

● Distribution Systems

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 Wireless LANs

● Station - Any device that communicates over a WLAN, for example, a

notebook computer, or mobile phones that support WiFi. Such a collection of
stations forming an ad-hoc network is called an Independent Basic Service
Set (BSS)

BSS architectures of Wireless LANs

● Access points -When an AP is present in a network, it allows one station to

communicate with another through it.

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 Wireless LANs

● Distribution Systems - A Distribution System interconnects multiple

Infrastructure BSSs through their APs as shown in Figure

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IEEE 802.11 WLAN application in the Smart Grid

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 Bluetooth

● Bluetooth, defined by IEEE standard 802.15.1, is a wireless LAN technology

designed to connect mobile or fixed devices using low-power, short-distance

radio transmission.

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 Bluetooth

● Bluetooth defines two network architectures called Piconet and Scatternet.

Piconet is a Bluetooth network consisting of a master device and up to seven

slave devices as shown in Figure.

● More devices can exist in synchronisation with the master but are not be able
to participate in communication concurrently.

● A slave in such state is said to be in a parked state. A device in a parked state

can move to an active state if the number of slaves in the Piconet falls below
seven.

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 Bluetooth

● Piconets can be interconnected through a Bridge which could be a slave for

one Piconet and master for another Piconet or slave for two Piconets that are
interconnected as shown in Figures. Such an interconnected set of Piconets
is called a Scatternet.

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 ZigBee and 6LoWPAN

● ZigBee and 6LoWPAN are two communication technologies built on IEEE

802.15.4.

● This is a low data rate wireless networking standard.

● Currently this standard is the most popular protocol for a Wireless Public
Area Networks (WPAN) due to its low power consumption, high
flexibility in networking and low cost.

● It creates an ad-hoc self-organizing network by interconnecting fixed,

portable and moving devices

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● A ZigBee device can be a Full Function Device (FFD) or
a Reduced Function Device (RFD).

● A network will have at least one FFD, operating as the

WPAN coordinator.

● The FFD can operate in three modes: a coordinator, a

router or an end device.
• An RFD can operate only as an end device.

• An FFD can talk to other FFDs and RFDs, whereas an RFD can only talk to an
FFD.

• An RFD could be a light switch or a sensor which communicates with a

controller.
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 6LoWPAN

● 6LoWPAN is a protocol which enables IPv6 packets to be carried over Low-

power Wireless Personal Area Networks.

● The minimum transmission unit for an IPv6 packet is 1280 octets. However,

the maximum MAC frame size defined by IEEE 802.15 is 127 bytes.

● Therefore, in order to implement the connection between the MAC layer

and IPv6 network layer in 6LoWPAN, an adaptation layer between the MAC
layer and the network layer is placed, as shown in Figure.

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6LoWPAN

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● Figure 16 shows a part of a smart metering network. It is proposed to use
ZigBee for the communication network. Considering the distances given,
propose a suitable ZigBee communication network for this scheme. In the
proposed configuration, do the smart meters act as an FFD or as an RFD

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 WiMax

● Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) is a wireless

technology which conforms with the IEEE 802.16 standard. It provides both fixed and
mobile connectivity using a technique called Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiple Access (OFDMA)
● The coverage of WiMax extends up to 50 km with peak data rates of 75 Mbps for
fixed connections and up to 15 Mbps for mobile connections
● Even though it supports vehicles moving up to 120 km/h, its performance degrades
with the vehicle speed

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 MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

● GPRS uses the existing GSM network and adds two new packet-switching
network elements: the GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node) and the SGSN
(Serving GPRS Support Node).

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 MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

GPRS- General Packet Radio Service

EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution)

● LTE is a competing technology to WiMax and supports user mobility up to 350

km/h, coverage up to 100 km, channel bandwidth up to 100 MHz with spectral
efficiency of the Downlink 30 bps/Hz and the Uplink 15 bps/Hz.

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 MULTI PROTOCOL LABEL SWITCHING

● Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a packet forwarding technique

capable of providing a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service to users over
public networks or the internet.

● MPLS works by attaching labels to data packets received from the Network
layer as shown in Figure.

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 MULTI PROTOCOL LABEL SWITCHING

● A MPLS header consists of four fields namely: the 20-bit label field, the 3-bit
experimental or class of service field, the stack bit and the 8-bit time to live
field as shown in Figure.

● In MPLS, when a packet is forwarded, the label is sent with it to the next
node. At that node, the label is used to determine the next hop.

● The old label is replaced with a new label and the packet is forwarded to its
next hop
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 POWER LINE COMMUNICATION

● The method of transferring power and data for communication through the
same existing network of wires from one end to the other end is said as Power
Line Communication.

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● Develop a standard for high speed (> 100 Mbps at the physical layer)
communication devices via electric power lines, the so-called Broadband
over Power Line (BPL) devices.

● It provides broadband data communications on conductors which are already

in use for the transmission of electric power using a modular signal.

● Now, this can be done through the home or premises wiring and may also be
done through the existing electric power distribution system.

● BPL (Broadband over Power Line) is also known as power-line Internet

which supports PLC technology to allow Internet access through the
transmission lines

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