Performance Evaluation of an IEEE 802.11 Mesh-based Smart Market and Smart Grid Communication System

In IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), October 2017.

Abstract:

An increased level of volatile renewable Distributed Energy Resources (DER) constitutes the need of continuous monitoring and active power coordination to ensure the short-term and long-term stability of future distribution grids. These Smart Grid functionalities present lots of new challenges, but at the same time facilitate the opportunities for Smart Market ancillary services. For this purpose, this paper presents an evaluation of an IEEE 802.11 Mesh-based network architecture, which is based on standardized Cigr ́e benchmark distribution grids and specified Smart Grid traffic. Performance results depict that the considered mesh network is a suitable solution for currently specified traffic requirements, but assumption on increased future traffic requirements results in about a four times worse scalability in terms of number of supported devices, which needs to be considered for current and future Smart Market deployments.