Performance evaluation of cellular communication systems for M2M communication in smart grid applications

The increasing power demands and growing awareness for sustainable and green energy has led to distributed generation of power from different sources. This transition from centralized to a distributed power generation has increased the necessity to upgrade the traditional grid. The future grid, i.e. Smart Grid, should offer two way flow of power and information. Smart grid needs to intelligently manage the power generation, transmission, and distribution to generate optimal power resources and adapt consumers to those power resources. In addition, it should support smart metering and monitoring to reduce energy consumption and cost. This intelligent management demand near real time communication between the power generators, consumer utilities and the control center. Thus machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is the necessity of future smart grid applications. Smart grid is a huge infrastructure and its components are located at far-off locations. Hence, wired and short range wireless communication solutions would not be ideal for smart grid applications. This paper presents the performance evaluation of different cellular communication systems as a solution for M2M communication in smart grid applications.