Test-bed Assessment of Communication Technologies for a Power-Balancing Controller

Due to growing need for sustainable energy, increasing number of different renewable energy resources are being connected into distribution grids. In order to efficiently manage a decentralized power generation units, the smart grid will rely on communication networks for information exchange and control. In this paper, we present a Smart Grid test-bed that integrates various communication technologies and deploys a power balancing controller for LV grids. Control performance of the introduced power balancing controller is subsequently investigated and its robustness to communication network cross-traffic is evaluated. Various scenarios are demonstrated, assessing impact of communication network performance on quality of control.