The Smart Grid: A Use-Case for Large-Scale SDN Deployment

Abstract

The continued integration of distributed energy resources into the power grid is a well-known challenge. The increased variability in demand and supply causes frequent state changes. Consequently, more coordination between energy generation, energy storage, energy consumption, and the transmission grid is required. The lack of large rotating masses in the power grid further increases the timing requirements. All of this creates challenges with respect to a robust and resilient operation of the future smart grid. It also leads to enhanced requirements regarding the communication backbone of the smart grid. Within this abstract, we outline SDNSG, an SDN-based Smart Grid communication backbone for the middle and high voltage substations and equipment in the smart grid. SDN-SG provides highly reliably and timely communication.