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This paper focuses on possibilities of using data from smart meters for home area network applications. Data communication between a smart meter and a consumer for home area network can be done directly witout dedicated communication channel for remote data acquisition. The seriál interface can be used for user data readout, depending on the support of the meters. This paper demonstrates experimental measurements of RS-485 serial bus, with the main objective to find a comparison of different bus configurations and different distances. The main contribution is recommendation of the best RS-485 setup of resistors configuration for home area networks.

Smart meters (SMs) are key components of the smart grid (SG) which gather electricity usage data from residences and businesses. Home area networks (HANs) are used to support two-way communications between SMs and devices within a building such as appliances. This can be implemented using power line communications (PLCs) via home wiring topologies. In this paper, a bottom-up approach is designed and a HAN-PLC channel model is obtained for a split-phase power system which includes branch circuits, an electric panel with circuit breakers and bars, a secondary transformer and the wiring of neighboring residences. A cell division (CD) method is proposed to construct the channel model. Furthermore, arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) and ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) circuit breaker models are developed. Several HAN-PLC channels are presented and compared with those obtained using existing models.

Among the principals for securing smart grid infrastructure, accountability is one with lesser addressed concepts in smart grid literature. Even further, studies in the home area network are lacking in enforcement of accountable mechanisms as assigning responsibilities for devices’ actions are generally made the responsibility of the utility. This paper addresses accountability of devices in the home area network by providing a witness-based method for more accurate monitoring and estimation of the energy usage for devices whose power consumption varies while these devices are powered on. Algorithm analysis and simulation results show that the method is effective, and the method is well within the acceptable rate of error based on today's standards of estimation without need of previous knowledge of device profiles. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper proposes a redundancy optimization method for smart grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) to realize economy and reliability targets. AMI is a crucial part of the smart grid to measure, collect, and analyze data about energy usage and power quality from customer premises. From the communication perspective, the AMI consists of smart meters, Home Area Network (HAN) gateways and data concentrators; in particular, the redundancy optimization problem focus on deciding which data concentrator needs redundancy. In order to solve the problem, we first develop a quantitative analysis model for the network economic loss caused by the data concentrator failures. Then, we establish a complete redundancy optimization model, which comprehensively consider the factors of reliability and economy. Finally, an advanced redundancy deployment method based on genetic algorithm (GA) is developed to solve the proposed problem. The simulation results testify that the proposed redundancy optimization method is capable to build a reliable and economic smart grid communication network.

Большев Вадим Евгеньевич, научный сотрудник, ФГБНУ «Федеральный научный агроинженерный центр ВИМ», г. Москва; vadim57ru@gmail.com. Виноградов Александр Владимирович, канд. техн. наук, доцент, ведущий научный сотрудник ФГБНУ «Федеральный научный агроинженерный центр ВИМ», г. Москва; winaleksandr@rambler.ru. V.E. Bolshev, vadim57ru@gmail.com, A.V. Vinogradov, winaleksandr@rambler.ru Federal Scientific Agroengineering Centre VIM, Moscow, Russian Federation Обзор литературных источников показал, что тема инфраструктуры интеллектуальных счётчиков хорошо изучена и упоминается во множестве исследований за рубежом, в то время как в российской науке работ, полностью освещающих данную технологию, крайне мало. Поэтому данная статья представляет собой обзор зарубежных источников, посвященных данной теме. Инфраструктура интеллектуальных счётчиков является основой интеллектуальных сетей и представляет собой сочетание различных технологий, осуществляющих коммуникацию и управление в системах электроснабжения. Преимуществом этих технологий в сравнении с другими системами является наличие двунаправленной связи между потребителем и поставщиком электроэнергии, что позволяет участникам энергетического рынка оперативно взаимодействовать друг с другом и реагировать на изменения в системе. Данная статья описывает структуру инфраструктуры интеллектуальных счётчиков, её особенности и вопросы интеграции в систему электроснабжения. В статье предоставлена информация по основным компонентам данной системы. Даны описание, работа и возможности использования интеллектуальных счётчиков, а также их устройства. В статье имеется информация, посвященная описанию структуры центра обработки данных, архитектуры сетей связи и технологий, используемых для передачи информации между компонентами данной системы. Также в статье приведены основные протоколы и стандарты, используемые в инфраструктуре интеллектуальных счётчиков. Описанные в статье технологии использования интеллектуального измерения в сетях электроснабжения могут быть применены для сетей газоснабжения и сетей водоснабжения. The review of existing publications shows that the topic of advanced metering infrastructure has been studied extensively and is mentioned in a variety of foreign studies. However, no Russian publications on the technology have been found. Therefore, the article presents an overview of foreign sources on the subject. Advanced metering infrastructure, being a combination of various power supply systems communication and control technologies, serves as the basis of intelligent networks. Compared to other systems, the advantage of this technology is the bidirectional consumer – electricity supplier communication. The article describes the structure of smart meter infrastructure, its features and issues connected with its integration into power supply systems. The article describes the main components of this system, its performance, and the possibilities of using smart meters as well as their structure. The article presents the information on the data center structure, communication network architecture, and technologies used to transfer data between the system components. The article also describes the main protocols and standards of the Advanced metering infrastructure. The technologies described in the article cover the implementation of this system in the power supply network, however, they can be used for gas and water systems as well.

This paper presents a solar water heating system with novel safety and energy management functions that protect both the solar installation and users health. The planned system schedules safeguarding operations and improves the efficiency of the heat transfer mechanism. The system prevents Legionella pneumophila bacteria colonies outbreaks and promotes energy management by using an extensive set of data, retrieved from strategically located probes that properly feed the implemented control algorithms. The methodology and the reported technical solutions in this research could be, in the future, used as an integrated part of the smart grid home area network being nowadays, in its simplest form, a practical guide to promote mass market usage of the solar water heating systems in Portugal.

Securing the network communication for the smart grid, it is important that a secure key distribution and management scheme is needed. Advanced metering Infrastructure (AMI) is considered as integral part of the smart grid that collects and analyzes the information of energy consumption using the communication network. In order to achieve data confidentiality, privacy, and authentication in AMI, various crypto algorithms are used, such as demand key distribution and management schemes. Investigation on properly designed key distribution and management scheme for securely gathering both individual and aggregated meter’s readings is one of the critical requirements. In this paper, we propose a secure key distribution for Home Area Network (HAN) in smart grid. In this paper, we propose a new key distribution and management scheme, which uses identification scheme of Wu – Hsu and tailored to smart grid. We also give the scheme for key update/freshness and key revocation. Specifically, a group ID based mechanism is proposed to establish the keys for a large amount of users with small overload.

The choice between wired and wireless networks is commonly driven by grid topology and geographical environment as these factors have enormous influence on network performance and infrastructure cost. By analyzing and comparing their strengths and weaknesses of two leading communication technologies, a hybrid solution is proposed to operate Smart Energy Profile 2.0 over two underlying MAC/PHY technologies. The proposal solution provides a seamless connectivity between ZigBee and Power Line Communication networks to reap benefits from their respective advantages. Since the two technologies are complementary media, the combination is more appropriate than a single application or installation scenario.

International audience; Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) serve as a key enabling technology for various smart initiatives, such as Smart Power Grids, by virtue of providing a self-organized wireless communication superhighway that is capable of monitoring the health and performance of system assets as well as enabling efficient trouble shooting notifications. Despite this promise, the current routing protocols in WMNs are fairly limited, particularly in the context of smart initiatives. Additionally, managing and upgrading these protocols is a difficult and error-prone task since the configuration must be enforced individually at each router. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) shows promise in this regard since it enables creating a customizable and programmable network data plane. However, SDN research to date has focused predominantly on wired networks, e.g., in cloud computing, but seldom on wireless communications and specifically WMNs. This paper addresses the limitations in SDN for WMNs by allowing the refactoring of the wireless protocol stack so as to provide modular and flexible routing decisions as well as fine-grained flow control. To that end, we describe an intelligent network architecture comprising a three-stage routing approach suitable for WMNs in uses cases, such as Smart Grids, that provides an efficient and affordable coverage as well as scalable high bandwidth capacity. Experimental results evaluating our approach for various QoS metrics like latency and bandwidth utilization show that our solution is suitable for the requirements of mission-critical WMNs.

Home Area Network (HAN) forms an integral part of the Smart Grid technology providing a smarter Solution to the energy crisis. This article proposes a remote interface controller for Smart Homes as a part of Home Automation and Demand Side Management. The intelligent controller submits the user with the individual energy consumption profiles of the appliances at his home on an android mobile application providing the user with dual appliance control (on/off) options: manual or automatic. The former requires manual control of the appliances while the latter lets the controller make the decision based on dynamic tariff rates using Fuzzy Logic. This system being user friendly can be adopted for the Smart Grid and Smarter homes.

Strengthening of Smart Grid functionalities has become the need of the 21st Century. Security evolves to be the primary concern at the deployment level of Smart Grids. Cyber security threats and vulnerabilities in Smart grid Network needs to be addressed before the deployment of the Smart Grid. Our proposed intrusion detection scheme identifies anomalies in the Smart Grid traffic and detects attacks like flooding which causes Denial of Service in Smart Grid Networks. This paper applies k-Means algorithm for clustering of traffic data and outlier detection for the data transmitted between utility Centre and the Smart Homes. Performance of the algorithm has been compared with other clustering algorithms and the results were found to have higher percentage in anomaly detection.

High-speed power line communication (PLC) is useful technology to easily build the communication networks, because construction of new infrastructure is not necessary. In Europe and America, PLC has been used for broadband networks since the beginning of 21th century. In Japan, high-speed PLC was deregulated only indoor usage in 2006. Afterward it has been widely used for home area network, LAN in hotels and school buildings and so on. And recently, PLC is greatly concerned as communication technology for smart grid network. In this paper, the author surveys the high-speed PLC technology and its current status.

In a home environment, a Smart Grid Home Area Network (SG-HAN) platform facilitates collection and delivery of power consumption information for load profiling and informed decisions on energy management. However, one of the main challenges in HAN is the overcrowded unlicensed 2.4-GHz ISM frequency band, occupied by several types of radio technologies such as ZigBee, Bluetooth, and WiFi. It is crucial that those technologies coexist peacefully to allow each user of the radio technology to fulfill their communication goals. In this paper, we present a potential coexistence scenario in SG-HAN for homogeneous and heterogeneous wireless technologies. The coexistence impact on SG-HAN performance is then modeled and analyzed. The numerical results show significant performance degradation due to the interference for devices in close proximity with the interfering sources in a spectrum sharing environment where in the worst case scenario, SG-HAN communication is almost impossible.

The electricity industry is entering a new era, which adds powerful and innovative features to the current power grid. Home area networks (HAN) are integral in the operation of this cyber-physical infrastructure and has generally been considered one of the most insecure and vulnerable areas of the smart grid. Literature in the area is lacking and accountability in the HAN is seldom discussed. In this paper, accountability in the HAN is studied. We propose a method, which provides for grouping and inspection of the devices in a HAN in order to pinpoint malicious devices efficiently therein. With this, a higher level of fine-grained accountability can be achieved in the smart grid HAN. The experimental results show that the method is effective in its efficiency and scheme.

The machine to machine communication in Home Area Network (HAN) having a great impact on building a powerful smart grid. With recent advances in M2M technologies, SG smart meters are not only collecting the information about the energy consumed, but also detailed energy consumption pattern and also used for analyzing future demand of utilities. Information and communication technology is playing very important role in transforming Power grids to Smart grid. However, there are many challenges in the design of the Smart grid communications network whereby the electrical appliances and smart meters are able to exchange information pertaining to varying power requirements. Furthermore, different types of M2M gateways are required at different points of the SG communication network. This article surveys a number of existing communication technologies that can be adopted for M2M communication in HAN for SG and also explained the various challenges that the M2M communication in HAN for Smart Grid is facing. Furthermore, a possible solution to deal with these challenges and to improve Machine to machine communication in HAN for Smart Grid is also presented.

The paper deals with Smart Grids. After slight introduction, the Home Area Network is described. The paper focuses on the device called Home Coordinator. The Home Coordinator controls all home appliances in the home with respect to reach their maximum efficiency and cost saving. A basic approach and algorithm to schedule home appliances is presented.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses what consumers, technology vendors, and utility companies should expect to see in the near future. In addition, this chapter discusses what security professionals are predicting for the smart grid and how to stay current with the movement to secure the smart grid. Consumers are promised that the smart grid will bring many improvements to their daily lives. Smaller electric bills less frequent and shorter power outages, and more immediate access to energy usage information is just some of the promises made to consumers. To fulfill these promises, several new technologies are invading consumers' homes and businesses including smart devices, smart meters, home area network, electric vehicles, and personal power plants. In addition, utility companies have also promised that the smart grid will bring many improvements to their operations. New technology will help utility companies reduce energy waste, perform more accurate billing, increase the stability of the electric grid, and reduce operating costs.

Smart Grid (SG) technology aims at bringing the world's aging electric grids into the twenty first century. To this end, the current power grids require to be overlayed with a robust communications system. Home Area Network (HAN) is an important part of the SG communications framework through which the end-users are able to communicate with the electricity provider. In a HAN, there is typically a smart-meter and a number of electric appliances. Most of the proposals to-date have agreed upon using IEEE 802.15.4 wireless technology dubbed as ZigBee for the HAN communications amongst the smart meter and the various electric appliances. Although ZigBee provides few security features, the technology still suffers from a number of security vulnerabilities, particularly in case of SG HAN. In this paper, we describe a HANIdentifier (HANId) conflict attack against ZigBee for HAN communications and demonstrate the impact of the attack on SG communications through computer simulations. Finally, we also envision an appropriate framework to prevent the attack.

With increasing oil price and environment pollution, especially in large cities, electric vehicles are getting to be more interesting than they were several years ago. Using electric vehicles in cities and large agglomerations lead to less pollution caused by common cars combustion engines (nitrogen oxides, carbon oxides, dust particles). Electric vehicles are more considerate to the environment than traditional cars even when the energy produced by non-renewable energy resources is used for their charging. The lack of the infrastructure prevents electric vehicles spreading. This paper describes standards and ideas how to integrate electric vehicle charger to the home area network. Home area network is a local part of SmartGrid network usually situated in homes. All devices connected to this network should implement several specifications. Basic requirements to charger properties are summarized.