A smart grid network is a cyber-physical system that integrates power infrastructure with IT. Smart grid networks will use machine-to-machine (M2M) communication infrastructure and advanced control techniques for power distribution and management. But several key challenges such as reliability, interoperability have to be solved first. This project will investigate new reliable and secure concepts of M2M communication in smart grid networks and demonstrate the results in a real environment.

Introduction and Motivation

Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have become a recognized problem of international significance in recent years. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, offer a key solution to this problem. However, their integration into existing grids come with a whole new set of barriers, such as intermittency of generation, the high level of distribution of sources and the lack of proven distributed control algorithms.

Communication (wired and wireless) and security to manage such a highly distributed generation base will pose the main problems. Whereas communication technology is seen as an essential enabling component of future smart grids, there are a number of challenges that need to be addressed in order to have fully robust, secure, and functional smart grid networks. Communication requirements become even more important when attempting to derive more value from new and existing networks by having them carry additional applications. Designing networking requirements to address challenges, including future proofing, data management, real-time analytics, network health, and security, can greatly reduce the operational risk and improve the efficiency associated with new communication networks.

Background

In recent years, M2M communication has attracted a lot of attention in both academia and industry and applications are appearing in a variety of areas such as smart grids, consumer electronics, vehicular communications and e-health. M2M is expected to have a compound of annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.6%. However, there is still some significant challenges such as reliability, quality-of-service (QoS), security and privacy, regulations and standardization issues, needs to be solved before M2M will become the expect impact on smart grids as anticipated by vendors, analysts, etc.

Objectives

In this project researchers aim to take a more holistic approach and consider the entire smart grid network instead of trying to optimize small parts on isolated islands in the network which will in the big picture have almost no impact at all. Since M2M and smart grid are huge areas, it is not possible to cover everything in this project. Research focus on reliable and secure M2M communication, mainly in the distribution and consumer part, but still have the complete picture in mind. In order to solve such complex problem tools and theory from several disciplines will be used such as cryptography, optimization, real-time systems, control systems, signal processing, and communication systems. A close collaboration with the involved project partners and academic partners will ensure the success of this project and the outcome expect to have impact in increased knowledge for all partners and also on future standardization for smart grids and the involved companies’ product portfolio.