Communications Technologies for Smart Grid Applications: A Review of Advances and Challenges

Abstract

Smart grid is a modern power grid infrastructure for improved efficiency, reliability, and safety, with smooth integration of renewable and alternative energy sources, through automated control and modern communications technologies. The smart grid offers several advantages over traditional power grids such as reduced operational costs and opening new markets to utility providers, direct communication with customer premises through advanced metering infrastructure, self-healing in case of power drops or outage, providing security against several types of attacks, and preserving power quality by increasing link quality. Typically, a heterogeneous set of networking technologies is found in the smart grid. In this chapter, smart grid communications technologies along with their advantages and disadvantages are explained. Moreover, research challenges and open research issues are provided.