1

A Proposed Communications Infrastructure for the

Smart Grid
Amit Aggarwal, Graduate Student Member, IEEE, Swathi Kunta, Nonmember and Pramode K.
Verma, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract--This paper explores and fortifies the need for a
robust communications infrastructure for the upcoming smart
grid and computes the bandwidth requirement for a hypothetical
grid infrastructure. It presents the architecture of the current
distribution system and shows that even for a medium-sized grid,
the latency requirements of messages on the smart grid will
require optical fibers as the transmission medium.
Index Terms--Communication systems, Optical fibers, Power
distribution, Power system communication.

I. INTRODUCTION:
The United States electricity grid is an extremely large and
a very complex system. This grid was designed many years
ago and is a mixture of old and new technology. Many of the
grid components are near the end of their normal life spans.
There have been five massive blackouts over the past 40
years, three of which have occurred in the past nine years [1].
More blackouts and brownouts are occurring due to the slow
response times of mechanical switches, a lack of automated
analytics, and poor visibility, i.e., a lack of situational
awareness on the part of grid operators [1].
There is a fast evolving need for long transmission lines
because of all the energy trading that has accelerated during
the last several years. The grid is now being used extensively
for long distance transportation of electricity and for switching
among providers so as to obtain electricity at the lowest cost.
The grid was never designed for these uses, so such uses
present an enormous stress on its capabilities. One result of
this demand is the increased congestion that occurs when the
low cost energy cannot be delivered to all the loads because of
insufficient transmission capabilities. One particular area of
concern is the Eastern Interconnection [2]. The Eastern
Interconnection is one of two major alternating current (AC)
power grids in North America. There is great deal of objection
to the placement of new transmission lines in general. This
objection makes it difficult to obtain the approval for
placement of new transmission lines, which leads to more line
congestion due fewer transmission lines than are needed [2].
A critical component of the modernization effort of the US
power system is the smart grid (SG). The SG has various
names such as power grid, intelligent grid, grid wise, modern
grid, perfect grid, or future grid [3]. Efforts of modernization
Amit Aggarwal is Ph.D. student in The School of Electrical and computer
Engineering, University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, OK 74135 USA(Email:
amit.aggarwal@ou.edu)
Swathi Kunta is Masters student in the Telecommunications Engineering
Program, The School of Electrical and computer Engineering, University of
Oklahoma-Tulsa, OK 74135 USA (Email: swathik@ou.edu)
Pramode K. Verma is Director of Telecommunication Engineering Program in
The School of Electrical and computer Engineering, University of OklahomaTulsa, Tulsa, OK 74135 USA (Email: pverma@ou.edu)

978-1-4244-6266-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

of grids have so far led to characterization of the functions of

the SG. According to the United States Department of
Energy's Modern Grid Initiative report [4], a SG must be able
to heal itself, allow consumer participation and, in particular,
motivate them to participate in the operations of the grid,
resist physical and cyber attacks, and provide high quality
power to have more stable power with lower frequency and
voltage fluctuations which are provided by the SG. Power
outages and power quality issues cost the U.S. businesses
more than $100 billion on average each year [3]. So, assuring
more stable power provided by the SG technologies will
reduce downtime and prevent such high losses, accommodate
generation options, and enable electricity markets to flourish
and optimize the use of assets.
The SG must provide a two-way communication, along
with sensing and control, among the points of generation and
the end user. Therefore, it is a combination of energy-related
communication, software, and hardware. The combination is
only possible with the creation of a new communication
systems architecture, integration, and protocols.
Because of the growing environmental concerns, the
current grid must be updated and must accommodate power
generated from renewable sources like wind, rain, sunlight,
tides and geothermal heat. In 2009, President Barack Obama
asked the United Congress to act without delay to pass
legislation that included doubling energy production from
alternate sources in the next three years and the building of the
SG [5].
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is a key factor in
the SG. AMI is an architecture for automated, two-way
communication between a smart utility meter and a utility
company. Smart meter is an advanced meter that identifies
power consumption in much more detail than a conventional
meter and communicates the information back to the utility for
monitoring and billing purposes [6]. Consumers can be
informed of how much power they are using so that they could
control their power consumption. By managing the peak load
through consumer participation, the utility will likely provide
electricity at lower rates for all.
The world's largest smart meter deployment was
undertaken by Enel SPA in Italy [7]. Austin, Texas took the
lead to build SGs in order to improve the energy infrastructure
[7]. At times of peak demand, the electric utilities could turn
off the load themselves. To put it in other words, the complete
SG will reduce customers expenses and their carbon
footprint.
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRESENT GRID:
Our current grid was built 50 years ago and it is aging
under increasing stress so this problem makes the distribution
system vulnerable or unsafe to the American Industry and the

environment. While there have been upgrades in or invention

of other products, the grid has remained substantively the
same.
The present grid allows one-way communication only from
the generating system to the downstream points of
distribution. This is clearly insufficient in a system where a
point of consumption could also become a point of generation.
Features of the present Grid do not offer the capabilities
that are provided by the SG. The present grid is not equipped
to deal with congestion caused by electricity traffic being
stimulated by the long-distance demands power trading caused
by deregulation of the U.S. electricity markets. Slow response
times of mechanical switches, lack of automated analysis of
problems, inability to see the whole grid, are contributing to
an increase in failures of the grid [8]. In many areas of the
United States, the only way the utility companies know there
is an outage is when a customer reports it.
The current distribution system has over ten thousand
transmission substations in the United States, upward of two
thousand distribution stations, more than 130 million
customers, and around 5600 distributed energy facilities [6].
The North American grids involve almost 3500 utility
organizations.
III. STANDARDS AND INTEROPERABILITY:
The SG requires many standards. To make the SG effective
a set of standards must be in place. The Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has recently taken the
initiative to define these standards and write guidelines on
how the grid should operate using the latest in power
engineering, communications, and information technology.
The standards group that was created is known as the IEEE
P2030 group [9]. Its first meeting was held in June 2009 at
Intel headquarters in Santa Clara in California. Three task
forces were formed to tackle distribution systems including
the integration of different energy sources, transmission substations, load side requirements, and cyber security. These
task forces will focus on power engineering technology,
information technology, and communications technology.
The power engineering technology group will work on the
functional requirements of interoperability, drawing on
various existing and ongoing effort by groups such as
International Society of Automation and International Electrotechnical Commission. The information technology group will
look at the issues of privacy, security, data integrity,
interfaces, and interoperability. And the communications
technology group will define the communication requirements
between devices on the SG and establish boundaries for
generation, transmission, and distribution in conjunction with
the customer [9].
Interoperability of an SG is the ability of diverse systems to
work together, use the parts, exchange information or
equipment from one another, and work cooperatively to
perform a task. It enables integration, effective cooperation,
and two-way communication among the many interconnected
elements of the electric power grid [10], [9]. On April 13th,
2009 the National Institute for Standards and Technology
(NIST) names George W. Arnold as the first International
coordinator for SG interoperability [10].

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA)

assigned some responsibilities to the National Institute for
Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop a framework
that includes protocols and standards for information
management to achieve interoperability of SG devices and
systems [11]. The NIST has developed a three phase approach
to identify SG standards. Phase 1 addresses the engagement of
stakeholders in a participatory public process to identify
applicable standards and gaps in currently available standards
and priorities for new standardization activities, ending with
the final publication of the Framework report after public
comments have been incorporated. Phase 2 will establish a
private-public partnership and form an SG Interoperability
Panel to drive longer-term progress. Phase 3 will develop and
implement a framework for testing and certification of how
standards are implemented in SG devices, systems, and
processes [3], [11].
The National Institute for Standards and Technology has
created a document called SG Interoperability Standards
Roadmap. This document identifies the short and long term
plans for architecture development, associated standards and
infrastructure development for the SG [9].
The NIST conceptual reference model identifies seven
domains like bulk generation, transmission, distribution,
markets, operations, service provider, and customer and major
actors and applications within each. The reference model also
identifies interfaces among domains and actors and
applications over which information must be exchanged and
for which interoperability standards are needed [11].
The following section discusses the architecture of the
existing distribution system.
IV. THE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK ARCHITECTURE:
This section explains the North American electric
distribution network architecture. The architecture explained
here is an adaptation of the topology of the distribution
network architecture explained in [12] and [13].
A. Present Distribution Architecture
The electricity grid delivers power from points of
generation to consumers and this delivery network functions
through two primary systems: The transmission system and
the distribution system. The transmission system delivers
electricity from power plants to distribution substations while
the distribution substation delivers electricity from distribution
substations to consumers [12].
The electricity distribution network consists of
Transmission Substations (TS) (located near power generation
plants), the distribution substations (DS), and the feeders near
consumers.
Fig. 1 shows the basic distribution network (DN) architecture.
The TS supply the generated power on High Voltage
Transmissions lines (>230KV) to the DS. Usually, handoff
from electric transmission to electric distribution occurs at the
DS [6]. This fleet of DSs takes power from transmission level
voltages and distributes it to lower voltage distribution lines.
The DS first converts it to medium voltage levels and then
feeders close to users convert that voltage to lower voltage
levels for use by end-users. Thus, distribution starts at the DS
and ends at the customers meter.

Transmission Substations
High Voltage Distribution Network
Distribution
Substation

Control
Center

Distribution
Substation

Control
Center

Distribution
Substation

Distributed
Energy
Resources

Medium Voltage Distribution Network

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Feeders/
Transformer

Low Voltage Distribution Network

Meters

Meters Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Meters

Fig. 1. Electricity Distribution Network Architecture

B. Some facts and figure about current Distribution System

The following figures characterize the current distribution
system [6], [12].
Number of transmission substation, i.e., power plants
in U.S. is 10,287.
Number of Distribution Substations is 2179.
Number of Electricity customers is about 131 million.
Number of distributed energy facilities is roughly
5600.
There are more that 3,100 electric utilities [6].
o 213 stockholder-owned systems provide power to
73% of customers.
o 2,000 Public utilities run by states and local
government agencies providing power to 15% of
the customers.
o 930 electric cooperatives provide power to 12%
customers.
The SG system will have sensors and points of
communication at almost each node of the grid including
meters at customers premises, feeders, distributions lines, DS,
TS, control centers, and distribution energy resources. It is
apparent from the data above that the SG will have a
communication infrastructure which is far richer than that in
the current grid.
V. COMMUNICATION NEEDS OF SMART GRID:
Computers and data networks are becoming more and more
important part of our life. The next generation of devices is
going to incorporate more and more of these technologies into
them. So, the need of high quality power with lower frequency
and voltage fluctuations is increasing. To provide good quality
power to consumers is one of the goals of the SG technology.
To achieve this, there will be a need to implement sensors at
various points in the distribution network and these sensors
will need a communication network to communicate with
different distribution elements and the control center.
As mentioned earlier, sensing, communication, and control
are the three fundamental building blocks that will convert a
distribution system into a SG. Sensing will have the ability to

detect malfunctions or deviations from normal operational

ranges that would warrant action. Further, since in a SG, a
point of electricity consumption can also become a point of
generation, the sensing process will be closely linked with the
metering process. Communication will allow inputs from
sensors to be conveyed to the control centers of the grid which
will generate control messages for transmission to various
points on the grid resulting in appropriate action. The
communication infrastructure has to be robust enough to
accept inputs from the user and make him or her an integral
part of the process. By the same token, the user must be
capable of getting the appropriate level of information from
the grid on demand or as programmed.
The SG needs the flexibility of adding more and more
devices and services into it and more end-user interaction like
real time monitoring of energy meters. As discussed by
Francisco Lobo et al. [13], an IP-based network will provide
an effective solution for the communication needs of the SG.
An IP-based network as the backbone makes use of new
technologies independent of the service implemented by the
distributed network operator. The cost of deployment and
maintenance can be reduced significantly with use of IP-based
technologies [13]. Although the IP network is a good choice
for the future, this network must meet some stringent
requirements as mentioned by C.H. Hauser et al. [14]. The
two most important requirements are mentioned here:
Latency - It is one of the most stringent requirements
for the grid. If the control center misses any input
then it might substitute the missing input with inputs
from other sensors which can produce different
actions leading to erroneous results. The latency is in
the order of a few milliseconds (~ 10ms) [14].
Large numbers of messages - As new elements are
added to the network with the evolution of the grid
system, the new network should be able to transport
more messages simultaneously without any major
effect on latency. The numbers of messages will
likely increase must faster than the number of
elements on the network.
Its important that this network be decoupled from the
global Internet because the Internet will not be able to meet
the latency requirements of the SG, and it will potentially
result in security vulnerability for the SG.
Previous studies by C.H. Hauser et al. [14] have concluded
that a 10 millisecond average latency for a 400 bit message
using a T1 line will result in a utilization of just 6% of the T1
line. In the following subsection, we compute the
communication bandwidth requirements for an assumed
distribution network.
Fig. 2 shows a model where a DS serves 100,000
customers. In this model, a DS is connected to approximately
10,000 feeders and each feeder connects to approximately 10
customers. DS is also connected to the control center and
other distributed energy resources (DERs). The DS may be
connected to one or multiple power generating stations
through the TS.

A. Bandwidth requirements for Smart Grid Communication:

Transmission Substations
Communication lines

A Distribution Substation and Control Center

DER

Feeders (approximately 10,000)

Meters (100,000)
Fig. 2. Quantification of Distribution Network from one DS

In the following, we are going to calculate the bandwidth

required for the communication network that will support the
SG. Assuming that every electric meter generates a message
every second to the DS, the total number of messages is
100,000 messages per second. The feeders themselves will be
generating messages to each other and to the DS. We can
easily postulate the existence of 1 million messages per
second during a busy period. If we further assume that the
average length of each message is 100 bits and latency
requirements dictate that the mean delay is bounded to 10
milliseconds, the transmission speed can be computed using
queuing theory. Using conventional terminology [15], we
have mean length of the message 1/ = 100 bits, mean latency
T=10 msec and number of messages = 106 per sec. We
model the packets in the SG arriving at servers located at the
control center as M/M/1 traffic. We have assumed that the
packets continue to follow the Poisson discipline at each node.
Also, the inter-arrival time ( t = 1 / ) and service time
( x = 1 / ) are both exponentially distributed.
Using results in [15],
1
T=
(1)
c
and plugging the values of , and T we can evaluate the
transmission line bandwidth c as 100.01 Mbps.
It is well understood that the mean value of the latency
evaluated from (1) is not very meaningful if the delay varies
within wide limits. If we require that the delay is limited to 10
msec for 99% of the messages, then we will need a larger
bandwidth. We have the probability of delay exceeding the
defined threshold t (=10 msec) given by [15] and [16],
p1 = P{W1 t} = 1 e c (1 )t
(2)
For our analysis, we have, p1 = 0.99 , t = 10 msec,
6

1 / = 100 bits and = 10 messages per second. Using these

figures in (2), we can evaluate c as 100.056 Mbps. It can be
easily observed that both these situations result in a very poor
bandwidth utilization of the transmission facilities.
Unfortunately, a higher level of utilization will not permit
meeting the assumed latency constraint.
Let us take one more case where average message length
( 1 / ) is 400 bits. By using (1), the bandwidth can be
calculated as 400.04 Mbps. If the delay is limited to t = 10

msec for 99% of the messages, then from (2) we will need a
bandwidth c as 400.086 Mbps. We can easily observe that the
bandwidth requirement in this case has gone up substantially.
This requirement of high bandwidth will require optical
fibers for the communication medium along the electric
transmission and distribution lines to meet the latency
requirements.
The illustrative example shown above assumes only a
single server. In the SG of multiple levels of hierarchy, several
queuing systems in tandem will likely arise. In such a
situation, the mean latencies encountered at each system will
simply be additive.
It is obviously possible that the messages in the SG are
structured as fixed size messages. The exponentially
distributed message lengths as assumed in the analysis
presented earlier will no longer be valid. However, using
existing queuing theory results, such analyses can be easily
carried out. The most compelling part of the analysis is the
very large amount of bandwidth that will be needed even in a
moderately sized distribution system.
B. Optical fibers for smart grid communication
Utilities have different ways to install optical fibers. It will
be easier for the utilities to install optical fibers as they have
the right of way along their transmission facilities using
existing transmission poles and underground conduits. Thus,
the cost of installing optical fiber cables for the SG will be
inexpensive for a utility company.
The scale, size and number of messages will likely increase
geometrically as the scale of the distribution network
increases. However, speeds of transmission in optical fibers
have increased tremendously over the past several years. Thus,
the problem of scaling can be easily handled with fiber. Since,
optical fibers can easily support speeds of several hundred
gigabits per second, optical fiber-based networks will be the
long term solution for the evolving needs of SGs.
VI. CONCLUSION:
This paper has presented the need for a Smart Grid if we
were to deliver on the requirements of electric generation,
distribution, and usage in the future. We have shown that
Smart Grids build on the technologies of sensing,
communication, and control. We have postulated a medium
size distribution network and computed the bandwidth
requirements of the communication facilities in the grid.
Based on the assumptions we have used, we can already
foresee needs for communicating at 100Mbps and above even
for a moderate size distribution system.
VII. REFERENCES:
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

[5]

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Gail E.Tverberg, The U. S. electric grid: will it be our undoing?, May
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A vision for the modern Grid, National Energy Technology
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Modern Grid_Final_v1_0.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-27.
Seeing the Forecast: Obama Archives, [online] Available:
www.seeingtheforest.com/ archives/obama/.

5
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]

[14]

[15]
[16]

[17]
[18]

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VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Amit Aggarwal received the B.Tech. degree in
Electronics and Communications Engineering from
Punjab Technical University in 2005, and M.S.
degree in Telecommunication Engineering from
University of Oklahoma-Tulsa in 2008. Since 2007till date he has worked in Telecommunications
Systems Laboratory, to study VoIP networks,
network security and related Issues. He is a Ph.D.
student now in University of Oklahoma-Tulsa.
Swathi Kunta earned her Bachelors degree in
Electronics and Communications Engineering from
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in 2008
and is pursuing her M.S. in Telecommunications
Engineering at University Of Oklahoma-Tulsa. She
is doing her research on Wireless Sensor Networks
in Telecommunications Systems Laboratory.

Pramode K. Verma is Williams Chair in

Telecommunications Networking and Director
Telecommunications Engineering at The University
of Oklahoma Tulsa. He has more than 20 years of
leadership experience in the telecommunications
industry. In his last position with Lucent
Technologies as Managing Director Business
Development, Global Service Providers Business
and Business Communications System, his
responsibilities included creating strategic alliances
and partnerships with leading organizations, and managing the associated
profit and loss. He also held professional and management positions with
Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories for fifteen years.

Dr. Verma obtained his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from

Concordia University in Montreal, Canada in 1970 and an MBA from the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. He is the
author/co-author of over 50 articles and several books in telecommunications,
computer communications and related fields.
He is a past president of the International Council for Computer
Communication, a Washington D.C.-based global organization; a senior
member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York
and registered as a Professional Engineer, Province of Ontario, Canada.