Research of architecture and application of Internet of

Things for smart grid

Ling Zheng, Shuangbao Chen, Shuyue Xiang, Yanxiang Hu
North China Electric Power University
Beijing, China
chenshuangbaodeyou@163.com

AbstractAccording to the business characteristics and functional
requirements of the smart grid information and communications
technology platform, in this paper, we proposed layered
architecture of Internet of Things for smart grid and four links of
things of transmission of electricity, substation of electricity,
distribution of electricity and usage of electricity, and compared it
with the traditional electric power communication networks. As one
of the most important part of the end of the Internet of Things,
wireless sensor networks play an important role in the Internet of
Things applications for smart grid. We put forward sensor networks
application solution for the production processes of the smart grid.
Meanwhile, at the base of interactive demand analysis, Internet of
Things solution for smart usage of electricity was proposed.

Keywords-Internet of Things; smart grid; Information perceptive
and interactive platform; wireless sensor networks
I. INTRODUCTION
Although China's power grid information technology
extent are increasingly improving, it is still faced with some
special problems, such as the construction of a strong
backbone of the electricity network frame, improving the
power grid capacity of withstanding multiple failures,
strengthening the regional power grid backbone network
frame, enhancing grid stability level, enhancing the grid
operation flexibility, improving the power of enterprise
information construction, information interaction with the user
and fully playing the role of IT in the major decision-making
and modern management. The solution to these problems is
the key of the evolution from the existing power grid to
reliable, self-healing, economic, compatible, and integrated
and secure smart grid. To build a new generation of
information and communication technology (ICT) platform of
smart grid is the foundation for building smart grid.
In this paper, we firstly described the basic network
architecture and business characteristics of the Internet of
Things. And then we proposed the layered architecture of
Internet of Things for smart grid ICT platform through analysis
of smart grid business demand of four major areas of electricity
transmission, electricity substation, electricity distribution and
electricity usage, and compared the Internet of Things with the
existing electric power communication network performance.
On this basis, a kind of application based wireless sensors was
proposed for the production processes for smart grid. A
detailed analysis of the physical networking solutions for smart
electricity and smart grid interactive solution has been done for
the demand of sensor and interaction of smart grid.
II. INTERNET OF THINGS ARCHITECTURE ANALYSIS FOR
SMART GRID
For many years, although the domestic electric power
industry has done a lot of work in communications technology,
which played a huge role in raising the level of grid
automation. However, to the next generation of smart grid, the
existing electric power information and communication
platform is still far from being able to meet its need. Therefore,
we must attach great importance to the work of research and
experimental of the new information and communication
network architecture from a strategic height, in order to build a
safe, reliable, stable, easy to use, quick smart grid ICT
platform.
A. Internet of Things Architecture
Because there are a lot of blind spots in the data collection
of the existing electric power communication network, such as
mostly using labor inspection for condition monitoring of high-
voltage transmission lines, the Internet of Things application
framework for smart grid cannot achieve real-time monitoring
of the line. The capability of system self-healing and self-
recovery completely depends on the redundancy of the entity.
Customer service is simple, and the information is one-way.
Within the system there are many isolated information islands
lack of information sharing. Although the degree of automation
has been improving, because of the imperfections of
information and the weak capacity of information sharing,
many automated system in the system is fragmented, localized
and isolated, which can not constitute a real and organic unity.
So the level of intelligence of the entire grid is not high
enough.
From the specific point of view, shown in Figure 1,
Internet of Things for smart grid combined with the application
needs of the major aspects of the grid to establish the four
major application modules, intelligent electric transmission,
intelligent substation, intelligent distribution and intelligent
usage of electricity.
To meet application needs of the four major modules, we
build power integrated information platform for information
processing and applications of the upper layer. The information
platform database serves as effective carrier of information
processing, combined with cloud computing closely, in order to
achieve processing and analysis of the ubiquitous and real-time
2012 International Conference on Computer Science and Service System
978-0-7695-4719-0/12 $26.00 2012 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CSSS.2012.238
938
data. Through the effective handling of the vast amounts of
information, we can achieve the real-time monitoring and
troubleshooting of transmission lines, substation equipment,
distribution lines and distribution transformers, and deploy
unified electric power resources to achieve two-way interaction
with the user's information, thus achieve efficient, economic,
safe, reliable and interactive smart grid.













Fig.1 Application framework of internet of things towards
smart grid
B. Layered network architecture of Internet of Things for the
smart grid.
Internet of Things applications functional framework for
the smart grid proposed different application requirements
according to different characteristics of the major aspects.
According to the differences of performed functions and
supporting technologies of different stages, combined with the
basic network model of Internet of Things, Internet of Things
for smart grid is divided into the perceived extension layer,
network layer and application layer, three-layer network
architecture, shown in Figure 2.
Perception extension layer
Monitoring objectives of perception extended layer
include the power objects which are related to
processes of electric power. The perceptive scale of
electric power object covers all the meteorological
environment information, the device status information
and users of electricity information in four major areas
of transmission, substation, distribution and usage of
electricity. Household objects which are perceived
cover the family water thermoelectric table and the
remote control smart appliances. And other objects
contain a variety of sensors for security monitoring,
video cameras, RFID tags and other short-range
communication equipments. The information collected
from the perception object is classified and pretreated
by wireless self-organizing sensor network, infrared
communication, field-bus and other short-range
communication equipments, in order to access to aware
terminals and interactive terminals. The perceived data
are presented on the terminal device, implementing
interactive operations with users.


Fig.2 Smart grid-oriented hierarchical architecture based
on the internet of things

Network layer
The network layer is divided into the access network
and core network. First of all, the perceptive terminals
and interactive terminals shield the differences between
the various networks through the gateway and access
to private network and the Internet according to data
categories and level of security. Electricity access
private network mainly includes power fiber-optic
access networks and broadband wireless access
networks which access to the power core network
through the electric power private network, in order to
achieve real-time data collection, reliable return. The
side of Internet contains Ethernet, ADSL, 3G xPON
and other a variety of access methods.
The application layer
The application layer builds a variety of power
application platforms for the business needs of smart
grid. All application platform systems provide a more
delicate management and control through large
amounts of data obtained by the sensing means. In
addition, a new perception interactive platform should
be built on the basis of the existing power application
platforms. Grid companies are doing mutual perception
and interaction with users through this platform. The
connection of the perception interactive platform and
the power core network must be isolated from each
other, strong security measures to protect the indirect
interconnection. Therefore, the two in the figure are
connected with dotted line, which means a virtual
interconnection under the conditions of physical
isolation.
Shown in Table 1, the Internet of Things platform for
smart grid, compared to the existing electric power
communication network, have a greater advantage in the
context-aware, self-healing, interactive and security. And these
advantages are undoubtedly the fundamental guarantee for the
existing power grid to move toward information technology,
Smart
Transmission
Smart
Substation
Information
Application
Smart
Distribution
Smart
Electricity
Information



Processing
Line

Status

Analysis
Tower

Status

Analysis
Mete-
orological

Status

Analysis

First

Device

Status

Analysis
Secondary

Device

Status

Analysis
Distri
-bution

Network

Auto
-mation
Electric

Energy

Quality

Manage
-ment
Fine

Energy

Quality

Manage
-ment
Info
-rmation

Both-side

Interaction
Electric Power Comprehensive Information Platform Database
Information
Transmission
Electric Communication Network ( Fiber / Wide-Bind) wireless access

Perception


Extend

Interaction


Wireless sensor networks, RFID, PLC, Short distance communication and so on
Electric


Power


Internet


Of


Things


Standard


Making
Line
Status


Video
Security

Meteorological
Conditions


First
Device
Secondary
Device
Distribution
Status


Energy
Quality
Computation
Check


Usage of
Electricity
939
automation and interactive smart grid.

Tab.1 Function comparison between the Platform of Internet of Things and the
present power communication network


Internet of Things Platform Present Electric Power Communication network Platform
Evironment Perception use sensors, RFID to collect Manual inspection, not suit for
data of all processes of electricity operations in complex, terrain enviro
-nment, substation has blind zone

Self-healing network nodes have self-recovery ability only realized single dimension, low-
Can find, detect, remove hidden faults level tunnel self-healing, system self
-healing and self-recovery totally dep
-ends on the entity redundancy

Interaction support large-scale both-side data stream no longer realized the information int
supply both-side information interation for -eraction with users, service is simple
grid and the users and one-way

Different-Character support the bone network of grid, can integrate many kinds of network,
distribution network, 3G network can integrated however be isolated strictly from th
together -e Internet

Security can realize real-timely monitoring, and prevent have many information isolated islan
natural disaster and breakage by external forces -ds, lack of information sharing, low
and inefficient in processing disaster


III. THE APPLICATION METHODS OF INTERNET OF THINGS
FOR SMART GRID
A. Sensor network application methods for the production
processes of smart grid
Internet of Things applications for smart grid, its first
purpose is to improve the degree of information and
automation of production processes of the power system. Such
applications mainly rely on the wireless sensor network at the
end of the Internet of Things. The data collected by each sensor
node are transmitted by the wireless sensor network to gateway
node. Because gateway node contains the data acquisition
module, data processing and control module, communication
module and a power supply module, so you can automate the
classification of the data, select appropriate pretreatment
methods, the video information, meteorological information,
the operational status of the lines and equipment for centralized
classification and data fusion, this can greatly reduce the data
traffic and the forwarding burden of the gateway node,
reducing the node energy consumption . However, due to the
limited processing capability of the gateway node, the data
collected in the sensor network can only be a coarse-grained
processing information and data must be transmitted to the
smart grid ICT analytical processing platform for the
processing and analysis of fine-grained, ascend commands
according to the deal situation, in order to identify and solve
the failure in time.
Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the system architecture
of sensor networks for smart grid production processes. The
underlying layer are composed of sensors, smart terminals,
RFID tags and other input, output entities deployed in the
actual monitoring environment. The upward layers are
separately wireless sensor networks, the gateway node, the
access network and core network. And ultimately it is
connected to the Smart Grid ICT platform analysis and
processing system. Wireless sensor networks use the network
node of the perception and extension terminal to collect the
device status information, line status information, weather
environmental information and distribution of electricity
integrated information of the processes of electricity
transmission, substation and distribution. Brings together the
collected data to the gateway node, the gateway node transmits
the classified and pretreated data to the access network, and
then transmit together into power communication core
network. Sensor data are sent to the back-office data processing
center by power communication network to classified,
analyzed and processed unifiedly, after which the ICT
platforms send relevant directives and reverse transmission to
terminal network nodes in the same way, in order to achieve
real-time monitoring and troubleshooting of the whole
network.

















Figure 3 System Structure of Sensor networks for smart
grid producing processes
B. Solutions of Internet of Things for smart electricity
The users of smart grid not only include traditional users
such as residential users, commercial and industrial users, but
also include electric vehicle charging systems and other new
users. In the applications of Internet of Things for smart grid of
traditional users, the main connected object is the user's smart
two-way meter. Grid enterprises select intelligent bi-directional
meter of different functions according to the different electrical
nature and occasion, in order to energy metering, power quality
monitoring and tamper detection and a variety of applications
for users. Through the introduction of intelligent bi-directional
meter terminal equipment, comprehensive collection of
electricity information of users is possible, achieving a full
range of load monitoring and management from big users to
ordinary residential users. Smart meters upload meter data to
the information collection and application platform by the
sensor networks, power line carrier communication (PLC) or
field bus, and by the power access network and transmission
network.
C. The Internet of Things solutions for interaction of the
Smart Grids
Interaction is particularly obvious in the smart electricity
usage link as another important feature of the smart grid. While
the perception is the basic characteristic of the Internet of
Smart grid ITC platform analyzing and processing system
Central Network
Access Network Access Network
Gateway nodes
Communicate Module
Wireless Sensor Network
Wireless Sensor Network
Data integrated classification
Central Control Unit
Data Collection
Transmission line status
Pre-processing
Substation Device
Pre-processing
Users
Electricity Information
Pre-processing
Meteorological Conditions
Pre-processing
Meteorological ConditionsTransmission line status

Substation Device Integrated Information
940
Things, and not only use various means to achieve the
perception of ubiquitous objects, but also make full use of the

Tab.2 Objects under supervision in the terminal of the intelligent
electricity utilization


Monitoring objects Monitoring Cotent Device Requirement

Resident Users Time-sharing Electricity Metering low-cost

Stealing monitoring, load management secure and reliable


Big Users Time-sharing Electricity Metering easy to operate

Electricity Quality Monitoring easy to extend

Stealing monitoring


Internet and mobile communications resources to achieve
ubiquitous connectivity and interaction between persons and
things, things and things. As the centralized embodiment of
the Smart Grids interaction, the smart usage of electricity is
responsible to achieve the important task of establishing
intimate and responsible interactive relationships with users
and achieving supply and demand interaction. Thus, relative to
the transmission line, the unmanned substation and distribution
automation system, the ICT platform for the intelligent use of
electricity requires a wider area, the more business awareness
and interaction. The openness of perception and interaction is
contradictive to the requirements of smart grid secure
communication. However, only can we solve this
contradiction, we will truly find the Internet of Things
applications model for smart grid.
Such as described in Section 2 of this paper, starting from
the solution to contradictions of the network security and
openness of ICT platform of the smart grid, combined with
aspects of the application of smart electricity needs, develop
the Internet of Things solutions for smart electricity. The
program builds a new style perceptive and interactive platform
on the basis of existing information collection (DSM) and other
power applications platforms, electric power companies are
doing mutual perception and interaction by this platform and
user.

Fig.4 Network architecture of the internet of things
towards intelligent system of power utilization

This not only meets the demand for knowing electricity
information real-timely, achieving the desire of perceiving the
grid for the ordinary residents, but also set comprehensively the
social image of the grid companies, in order to really reach the
two-way perception and interaction, promoting a transparent,
open and safe construction of electric power grid.
IV. CONCLUTION
Although the concept of the smart grid is not yet unified,
taking advantage of advanced communication and information
technologies to improve the degree of intelligence of the grid
has become a consensus. Therefore, building a smooth, fast,
safe and reliable ICT platform is the fundamental guarantee
and inevitable trend of the grid intelligence. Fully considered
the characteristics demand for smart grid, this paper proposed a
solution to build Internet of Things for the smart grid.
The solution has not only considered the integration of
existing electric power communication network, but also
achieved the goals of the network information collection from
the full range in the perceptive terminal by using the
advantages of Internet of Things, and a reasonable
classification, filtering, analysis and processing of the vast
amounts of data with many information processing methods in
background information processing, in order to promote the
early implementation of a self-healed, secure, interactive,
coordinated and compatible smart grid. It is a long-term project
to build the Internet of Things platform for smart grid, which
requires the continuous improvement of information
technology level of the grid and the continuous advance of
Internet of Things standardization. Internet of Things blending
into the construction of ICT platform for smart grid should not
only be based on the immediate reality, but also take the
development prospects into account, not only be necessary to
meet the recent demand, but also accommodate future
development.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,
Professor. Ling Zheng, a respectable, responsible and
resourceful scholar, who has provided me with valuable
guidance in every stage of the writing of this thesis.
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