Towards cross-layer design of communication network for smart grid with real-time pricing

摘要

The efficiency of the emerging smart power grid infrastructure critically depends on the ability of the communication network to deliver real-time energy prices to the consumers. This paper's contribution is twofold. First, it derives the relevant Quality of Service (QoS) communication requirements and proposes the corresponding overall performance criterion for the communication network, which quantifies the negative effect of delaying energy pricing information on the grid operations. Second, this paper demonstrates that the conventional Network Utility Maximization (NUM) based cross-layer optimization framework can be enhanced to incorporate the specific requirements of the smart power grid infrastructure. The conventional NUM based cross-layer network optimization balances tradeoffs between bandwidth requirements of multiple users, given limited network resources. The proposed enhanced NUM also allows the system to balance user requirements for (a) communication reliability by taking advantage of multipath routing in presence of network outages, and (b) communication delays by taking advantage of priority packet scheduling. Future research should quantify advantages of the proposed robust and QoS-aware NUM as compared to the conventional NUM for specific operation scenarios of the smart power grid infrastructure.