Abstract
The energy sector represents undoubtedly one of
the most significant “test cases” for 5G enabling technologies, due
to the need of addressing a huge range of very diverse
requirements to deal with across a variety of applications
(stringent capacity for smart metering/AMI versus latency for
supervisory control and fault localization). However, to
effectively support energy utilities along their transition towards
more decentralized renewable-oriented systems, several open
issues still remain as to 5G networks management automation,
security, resilience, scalability and portability. To face these
issues, we outline a novel 5G PPP-compliant software framework
specifically tailored to the energy domain, which combines i)
trusted, scalable and lock-in free plug ‘n’ play support for a
variety of constrained devices; ii) 5G devices’ abstractions to
demonstrate mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications),
uMTC (critical MTC) and xMBB (Extended Massive
BroadBand) communications coupled with partially distributed,
trusted, end-to-end security and MCM to enable secure, scalable
and energy efficient communications; iii) extended Mobile Edge
Computing (xMEC) micro-clouds to reduce backhaul load,
increase the overall network capacity and reduce delays, while
facilitating the deployment of generic MTC related NFVs
(Network Function Virtualisation) and utility-centric VNFs
(Virtual Network Functions).
Keywords—Smart energy grids; 5G; preventive maintenance,
resilience; demand response; Machine Type Communications;
Virtual Network Functions.
I.
INTRODUCTION
The wide deployment of IoT devices, broadband and
mission critical services along with a large variety of scenarios,
ranging from smart city to factory automation, are paving the
way for a novel and disruptive 5G communication network,
which will enable huge capacity, zero delay, faster service
development, elasticity and optimal deployment, less energy
consumption, enhanced security, privacy by design and
connectivity to billions of devices with less predictable traffic patterns. Accordingly, the next generation network should be
capable of handling the complex context of operations and
support an increasingly diverse set of new and emerging
services, all of them with extremely diverging requirements,
which will push mobile network performance and capabilities
to their limits. Furthermore, it should provide flexible, smart
and scalable adaptation and/or association of the available
network resources to the requirements of the supported
services, enabling a dramatic paradigm shift from legacy
CAPEX to the OPEX “Everything-as-a-Service” driven
business models.
Although a variety of software frameworks and reference
architectures have already made available for 5G enabling
technologies, there is still a clear gap to bridge for 5G seamless
deployment within a number of “vertical” sectors such as smart
grid and smart city, which pose significant new requirements.
Among others, the energy “vertical” represents one of the most
demanding “use/test case” for 5G enabling technologies,
mainly due to the need of addressing a huge range of very
diverse requirements to deal with across a variety of
applications (stringent capacity for massive smart
metering/AMI (Advanced Manufacturing Infrastructure)
services versus stringent latency for supervisory control and
fault localization) [1]. As a matter of fact, the combined effect
of growing penetration of distributed Renewable Energy
Sources (RES) in the generation portfolio together with the
European Union’s “Customer Centric Energy Systems” vision,
which aims at turning energy consumers into active
“prosumers”, are dramatically changing the way in which
energy distribution grids operate. To underline the penetration
of RES with unpredictable energy generation patterns
integration, please consider that on 15 May 2016, RES
supplied nearly all of German domestic electricity demand[2]
while the political importance is evident by the agreement that
took place on 6 June between the North Sea region countries
(Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) to create good
conditions for the development of offshore wind energy [3].
Technological advances, political visions and market
liberation are transforming the energy network from a closed,
monolithic and highly predictable infrastructure to an open,
multi-owned, decentralized ecosystem and pose huge
challenges, both in functional (i.e. stability, resiliency and
highly availability) and in non-functional (i.e. sustainability,
security, privacy and CAPEX/OPEX) directions. In this new
and time varying energy landscape, 5G initiative is challenged
to guarantee optimal communications of the energy grid, which
is believed to be the most complex, heterogeneous and gigantic
machine ever made in human history.
In particular “last mile” of the smart energy network has the
highest potential for demonstrating the added value of the 5G
unified approach. While smart energy grids observability (in
particular in the case of smart electricity grid) is already in
place in the High and mostly in the Medium Voltage branches
of the energy networks, situational awareness of Low
Voltage/Low Pressure branches is lagging behind. The state of
the art is actually for substation-level/pumps monitoring via
SCADA, without considering real time energy consumption or
energy production feedback from prosumer, which would
allow a finer-grained prediction of the demand and an
improved load balancing of the energy networks. Hence smart
energy “last mile” network represents an ideal vertical for
extensive 5G deployment, where different applications with
different requirements have to be managed:
• Smart Grid applications, such as supervisory
monitoring (cyber monitoring and physical/aerial
surveillance), fault localization, isolation/self-healing
and energy re-routing, requiring more stringent
latency, highest availability and security (Mission
Critical)
• Advanced metering applications enabling the massive
and lock-in free integration of end-users’
infrastructure requesting more stringent capacity and
privacy (Massive IoT application)
• A combination of the above such as smart Electric
Vehicle charging, where 5G technology should be
able to incorporate and address both latency and
capacity more stringent requirements.
Beyond applications requirements, significant challenges
are posed from the energy infrastructure complexity and
heterogeneity. The huge diversity in variables such as
population density, service territory size, control and
monitoring technology, terrain and topology, power plants
location and fuel, RES capabilities and budget of utilities for
new deployments, as well as the different bandwidth and
latency requirements of applications within each utility, has
resulted in the deployment and management of several, legacy
communication solutions. Only 24% of utilities manage just
one communications network, with 58% of utilities have
between 2 to 6 operating networks, 14% between 7 to 10, and
4% have 10 or more networks[4], with a significant complexity
and financial burden to manage.
In this paper, we focus on the exploration of requirements
and identification of innovative concepts to be contributed to
the 5G PPP/5G Initiative research and development activities
towards the realization of a Smart Energy as a Service use case
that will stress 5G current results. We aim to advance beyond
state-of-the-art in virtualization-based communication
networks technologies, making them suitable to support Smart
Energy as a Service at large Scale, placing emphasis on
security, privacy, trust and high availability. This work was
developed in the framework of H2020 -NRG-5 project which
aims to additionally deliver innovative open-source prototypes,
state of the art laboratory experiments and heterogeneous reallife trials to draw valuable.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: in section II
we explore the main challenges that smart grid operations
impose on 5G technologies. These challenges have been
validated by smart grid operators from the NRG-5 consortium.
Then, in section III, we define novel concepts that can
efficiently address these challenges and are in line with the 5G
technology principle and vision. In section IV we propose a
novel architecture that proposes concrete developments that are
required to make 5G technology a perfect enabler for next
generation smart grid operations. Finally, section V concludes
the article.