Capacity Planning and Optimization of WiMAX for Smart Grid

There are many international efforts to modernizing the current aging power grid towards an efficient grid known as “smart grid” (SG). To implement SG, many sensors are attached to different points of the power grid infrastructure. These sensors collect data and can be used for controlling, protecting, and monitoring the status of the grid by receiving comands from the utility control center. Hence, communication is a keypoint in realizing smart grid. With the recent advances in wireless technologies, there is a preference to use new standards for the communication in SG.

One of the smart grid companies in Ontario is aiming at modernizing their power grid and our task is to design a wireless infrastructure given the number of end-user devices and the system specifications. The architecture will be modeled by applying the real network data. We optimize the system performance in terms of delay, relaibility and capacity using a network simulator before the implementation.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Lutz Lampe

Student:

Fariba Aalamifar

Partner:

Powertech

Discipline:

Engineering - computer / electrical

Sector:

Energy

University:

University of British Columbia