5G Smart Grid aims to create infrastructure and services for the future smart grid based on 5G networking.
FREMONT, CA: The use case can easily be replicated to other types of renewables, from utility-scale PV to customer-owned decentralized generation, despite being targeted explicitly at wind farms. By developing virtual network functions chained appropriately, Smart5Grid intends to create network applications. Adopting these technologies through an open repository would allow network operators and others to provide novel network services, automation, real-time inspection, and control for existing energy stakeholders. Below are the use cases:
The automatic detection of grid faults in power distribution: This use case aims to demonstrate the capability of increasing the availability of automatic selection for distribution network failures. It is imperative to isolate a grid failure within milliseconds of its detection. Due to this, the 5G network needs to ensure very fast and reliable communication among the intelligent energy devices involved in fault detection. Power interruptions for the affected electricity customers are minimized by providing the rest of the grid to function normally.
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Automated delineation of distribution-level working areas via remote inspection: Real-time monitoring of automatics delimited working areas at primary power substations using advanced tracking cameras and wearable sensors. Specifically, this use-case will demonstrate the capabilities for remote inspection through the deployment of a private 5G network, as well as the creation of 3D models that delineate the working areas of authorized personnel and the transmission of big data generated by sensors and cameras within the work area in real time.
Control of distribution generation at the millisecond level: Multiple parameters of distributed energy resources will be monitored in real-time with millisecond precision using 5G connectivity for energy production monitoring and predictive maintenance in use case 3. For instance, demonstrations will occur at a wind farm in south-eastern Bulgaria. 5G connectivity will be used to collect, process, and communicate key wind farm performance parameters, including turbine rotation and vibration, as well as environmental parameters such as wind speed, humidity, and ambient temperature. Electrical parameters include power output, grid frequency, and voltage.
Monitoring of wide areas in real-time: In this use case, a cross-border power exchange takes place in northern Greece and southern Bulgaria, which involves real-time monitoring of power flows over a geographically wide area. Both transmission system operators can communicate via this link reliably and with low latency. It will be possible to analyze voltage and current phasors in depth using time-stamped, synchronized PMU measurements with high data granularity.