Analysis of IP-based communication backbone over shared wide area-network for Smart Grid applications

Efficient and reliable operation of the Smart Grid largely depends on performance of the communication infrastructure. This paper investigates the opportunities to use existing public IP communication paradigm instead of constructing an end to end dedicated architecture confining to Smart Grid applications. Even though this concept is favorable as means of decreasing the installation expenditure, it might pose a challenge when ensuring Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for Smart Grid traffic. Therefore, we explore the possibility of applying prevailing service differentiation and queuing techniques at core network to improve the QoS for Smart Grid applications through a wide area communication network model incorporating public IP lines built in a simulation environment. Our results provide an examination of how performance targets are met and also a framework for utilizing the prevailing packet service mechanisms to reduce the performance impact for Smart Grid data.