IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2014 - 42

can decrypt the contents and only authenticated commands are executed. this functionality may be aided
by the he gateway.
✔ Integrity: although the lan in this context does not
require high reliability or low latency, one must ensure
that the integrity of messages is strictly guaranteed.
For instance, it must be ensured that the he component will only execute commands issued by the Sc if
they are guaranteed to have been correctly received.

operation and consumer networks require high security but
relatively lower reliability. For communications between the
business and consumer networks, however, only moderate levels of reliability, data availability, and security are required.

The Way to the Smart Grid

ieee power & energy magazine

Business
Network
Gateway

Operation
Network
Gateway

having introduced the three-entity framework as well as
some of the potential communication issues inside each
entity and between entities, we now illustrate how this
framework can be utilized to help engineers design smart
grid communication systems.
Communications in the Business Network
after acquiring a fundamental knowledge of smart grid
Unlike the other two entities, the business network does not
possess a dedicated communication architecture. Instead, it communication systems, engineers should first decide how
includes numerous new participants and players in the elec- many of the three entities shown in Figure 2 are relevant to
tricity market that communicate with each other using an IP- their design project. this will help them clearly understand
based virtual private network (VPn). as shown in Figure 5, the following two critical issues before starting their project:
the electricity market regulator, smart meter service provider,
✔ Expertise required: generally speaking, designing the
demand responder, and electricity market participants are the
communication systems inside the operation network
major players in the business network. there are also parties
requires expert knowledge of the power system. this
that communicate with the consumer and operation networks
means that if a communication engineer works on the
to obtain smart meter data and smart grid operation data via
operation network, he or she will probably need to colthe cng and ong, respectively.
laborate with engineers with power system backgrounds.
communications within the business network are mostly
✔ Nature of work: In designing the communication sysfor commercial use, and hence economy and security are of
tems within the operation network, compatibility with
the utmost concern. this will not be a big issue once an IPexisting technologies is of the utmost concern, while
based network is used, however. Since IP has been under
designing the consumer and business networks requires
development for decades, players in the business network
innovation to enhance the user experience but carries
will not have much difficulty finding their desired applicalimited compatibility restrictions. For instance, in the
tions and services from the market.
traditional electricity grid, the most important communication system is supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada), used by system operators to monitor the
Interentity Communications
operational status of the entire system and to issue comInterentity communications are very important for the
mands to particular components remotely. recent studproper functioning of the entire communication system in
ies have found that Scada may be too slow to respond
the smart grid. We will briefly introduce the requirements
properly to urgent events, however. as a result, a highfor such communications here; for more detailed informaspeed system offering similar functionalities called
tion, see "For Further reading."
a wide-area measurement system (WaMS) has been
communications between the operation and business netproposed for use in the smart grid. But since Scada
works require high reliability and security. those between the
has been in existence for decades,
it is neither economic nor feasible
to simply throw it out and use
Electricity
Smart Meter
new technologies. as a result, the
Market
Service
coexistence of Scada and new
Regulator
Provider
advanced systems such as WaMS
Electricity Data
Smart Meter
is seen as the true future in smart
Exchange
Data Handler
grid communications.
IP-Based Network
let us continue the illustration
with
the assumption that the operaDatabase
tion
network
is relevant. Based on
Manager
Figure 3, a sequence of design issues
Electricity
Demand
for the operation network may be
Market
Responder
identified by scanning the figure
Participants
Database
from bottom to top. one such issue
discovery process is illustrated by
the following steps:
figure 5. The business network.
may/june 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2014