EE-456

Introduction
to Smart
Grids

COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES
AND
INFORMATION
SECURITY FOR
SMART GRIDS
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Communication Infrastructure for Smart Grids

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Communication Infrastructure for Smart Grids
▪ The communication infrastructure of a power system typically consists of
SCADA systems with dedicated communication channels to and from the System
Control Centre and a Wide Area Network (WAN)

▪ Some long-established power utilities may have private telephone networks and
other legacy communication systems

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Communication Infrastructure for Smart Grids
▪ The SCADA systems connect all the major power system operational facilities,
that is, the central generating stations, the transmission grid substations and the
primary distribution substations to the System Control Centre

▪ The WAN is used for corporate business and market operations

▪ These form the core communication networks of the traditional power system

▪ However, in the Smart Grid, it is expected that these two elements of

communication infrastructure will merge into a Utility WAN
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Communication Infrastructure for Smart Grids
▪ An essential development of the Smart Grid (Figure 3.1) is to extend
communication throughout the distribution system and to establish two-way
communications with customers through Neighbourhood Area Networks (NANs)
covering the areas served by distribution substations

▪ Customers’ premises will have Home Area Networks (HANs)

▪ The interface of the Home and Neighbourhood Area Networks will be through a
smart meter or smart interfacing device
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Communication Infrastructure for Smart Grids
▪ The various communication sub-networks that will make up the Smart Grid
employ different technologies (Table 3.1) and a key challenge is how they can be
integrated effectively

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Communication Technologies
▪ Ethernet wired fit bums

▪ Ethernet has become the most widely used network technology for wired LANs
due to its simplicity, ease of maintenance, ability to incorporate new technologies
and reliability

▪ It has low cost of installation and is easy to upgrade

▪ It is a frame-based communication technology that is based on IEEE 802.3

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Communication Technologies
▪ Ethernet

▪ Its baseband is defined in a number of standards such as 10BASE5, 10BASE2,

10BASE-T, 1BASE5, 100BASE-T, and so on

▪ The first number, that is, 1, 10 and 100, indicates the data rate in Mbps

▪ The last number or letter indicates the maximum length of the cable and type of
the cable as defined in Table 3.3

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Communication Technologies

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Communication Technologies
▪ Ethernet

▪ An Ethernet LAN consists of all or some of the following devices

▪ Repeater
sbr hr
▪ Hub

▪ Bridge

▪ Switch

▪ Router
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Communication Technologies
▪ Repeater

▪ A Repeater has two ports: one for the input and the other for the output

▪ Once it receives a signal, this is amplified to eliminate any distortion (which has
been introduced when it was travelling through the communication channel) and
forwarded to the output port

▪ A Repeater works at the physical layer of the ISO/OSI reference model

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Communication Technologies
▪ Repeater

▪ Note that even though the input is digital, it can be weak and distorted as shown
in Figure 3.3

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Communication Technologies
▪ Hub

▪ A Hub is a multiport repeater which links multiple Ethernet devices

▪ A Hub passes the incoming signal to all the devices connected to it (Figure 3.4)

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Communication Technologies
▪ Bridge fb

▪ A Bridge has two ports and operates in the data link layer

▪ It transmits the incoming frame only if the channel to its destination is free or the
frame is a broadcast frame

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Communication Technologies
▪ Switch

▪ A Switch is a multiport bridge

▪ Unlike a hub, a Switch will not broadcast frames across the entire network (unless
it is a broadcast frame), it only sends the frame to the specific intended ports
(Figure 3.5)

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Communication Technologies
▪ Switch

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Communication Technologies
▪ Router gain

▪ A Router is used as a gateway between a LAN and a WAN

▪ A Router makes intelligent decisions on how to route traffic

▪ Routing protocols are composed of different algorithms that direct the way routers
move traffic

▪ A Router operates in the network layer

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Communication Technologies

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Communication Technologies
▪ Ethernet

▪ Ethernet uses a shared medium where more than one device tries to use the
common medium resulting in collisions of frames transmitted by multiple hosts

▪ The issue of collision is handled by a protocol called Carrier Sense Multiple

Access/Collision Detect (CSMA/CD)

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Communication Technologies
▪ Ethernet

▪ A set of hosts connected to a network in such a way that simultaneous

transmission by two hosts in the set leads to collision, creates a collision domain

▪ Ethernet LANs also carry broadcast frames defined by the addressing of layer 3 of
the ISO/OSI model

▪ The domain to which these broadcast frames reach is called the broadcast domain

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Communication Technologies
▪ Ethernet

▪ Network performance under heavy traffic conditions is affected by the way

collision domains and broadcast domains are located within the network

▪ Therefore, isolating them properly is vital to maintain peak performance of LANs

▪ A typical Ethernet LAN-based network, showing the collision and broadcast

domains, is shown in Figure 3.6

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Communication Technologies
▪ It is important to note that Switches, Bridges and Routers limit collision domains
and Routers also limit broadcast domains

▪ In the network shown in Figure 3.6, a packet leaving from Network A may collide
with a packet leaving from Network B but not one leaving from Network C

▪ This is because Networks A and B and Network C are connected through a Switch
which limits the collision domains as shown

▪ However, broadcast messages to Networks A, B and C may collide

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Communication Technologies
▪ Wireless LANs
ads

▪ Wireless LANs consist of the following components:

▪ Station

▪ Access Points

▪ Distribution System

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Communication Technologies
▪ Station

▪ This describes any device that communicates over a WLAN, for example, a
notebook computer, or mobile phones that support WiFi

▪ In ad-hoc networks these devices can communicate between themselves by

creating a mesh network as shown in Figure 3.8a

▪ Such a collection of stations forming an ad-hoc network is called an Independent

Basic Service Set (Independent BSS or IBSS)
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Communication Technologies

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Communication Technologies
▪ Access Points (AP): c wsb

▪ When an AP is present in a network, it allows one station to communicate with

another through it

▪ APs make the system scalable and allow wired connection to other networks

▪ Also, APs buffer the traffic when that station is operating in a very low power state

▪ When an AP is present in the network, as shown in Figure 3.8b, the collection of

stations is called an Infrastructure BSS
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Communication Technologies

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Communication Technologies
▪ Distribution System (DS): i fc me

▪ A Distribution System interconnects multiple Infrastructure BSSs through their

APs as shown in Figure 3.9

▪ It facilitates communication between APs, forwarding traffic from one BSS to

another and the movement of mobile stations among BSSs

▪ Such a set of Infrastructure BSSs is called an Extended Service Set (ESS)

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Communication Technologies
▪ Distribution System (DS):

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Communication Technologies
▪ Other Communication Technologies

▪ Bluetooth bmw mze

▪ ZigBee and 6LoWPAN

▪ Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax)

▪ Mobile Communications

▪ Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)

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 2 disc

Information Security for the Smart Grid

▪ The operation of a Smart Grid relies heavily on two-way communication for the
exchange of information

▪ Real-time information must flow all the way to and from the large central
generators, substations, customer loads and the distributed generators

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Information Security for the Smart Grid
▪ With millions of customers becoming part of the Smart Grid, the information and
communication infrastructure will use different communication technologies and
network architectures that may become vulnerable to theft of data or malicious
cyber attacks

▪ Ensuring information security in the Smart Grid is a much more complex task
than in conventional power systems because the systems are so extensive and
integrated with other networks
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Information Security for the Smart Grid
▪ Potentially sensitive personal data is transmitted and, to control costs, public ICT
infrastructure such as the Internet will be used

▪ The ability to gain access to electricity use data and account numbers of
customers opens up numerous avenues for fraud

▪ The Smart Grid requires reliable and secure delivery of information in real time

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Information Security for the Smart Grid
▪ Delays in the delivery of information accurately and safely are less tolerable in the
Smart Grid than for much commercial data transmission as the information is
required for real-time or near real-time monitoring and control

▪ Any form of interruption resulting from security issues is likely to have serious
effects on the reliable and safe operation of the Smart Grid

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Information Security for the Smart Grid
▪ Security measures should ensure the following:
Pair

▪ 1. Privacy that only the sender and intended receiver(s) can understand the
content of a message

▪ 2. Integrity that the message arrives in time at the receiver in exactly the same
way it was sent

▪ 3. Message authentication that the receiver can be sure of the sender’s identity
and that the message does not come from an imposter
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Information Security for the Smart Grid
▪ 4. Non-repudiation that a receiver is able to prove that a message came from a
specific sender and the sender is unable to deny sending the message

▪ Thus, there are well-established mechanisms to provide information security

against possible threats

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Encryption and Decryption
▪ Cryptography has been the most widely used technique to protect information from
adversaries
▪ As shown in Figure 4.1, a message to be protected is transformed using a Key that is
only known to the Sender and Receiver
▪ The process of transformation is called encryption, the message to be encrypted is
called Plain text and the transformed or encrypted message is called the Cipher text
▪ At the Receiver, the encrypted message is decrypted

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Encryption and Decryption

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Encryption and Decryption
▪ As indicated in Figure 4.1, an intruder can launch a passive or an active attack
▪ A passive attacker may use captured information for malicious purposes
▪ In an active attack, data may be modified on its path or completely new data, may
be sent to the Receiver
▪ Passive attacks, though they do not pose an immediate threat, are hard to detect
▪ Active attacks are more destructive but can be detected quickly in most situations

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Encryption and Decryption
▪ Different methods of encryption are:
▪ Symmetric key encryption
▪ Public key encryption

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