Distributed event-driven simulation environment for smart metering protocols evaluation

The growing of the electricity distribution infrastructure caused by the increasing number of users and power sources has recently bring about some supply problems. Smart grid technology is a recent proposal that uses computerized systems to improve the availability and reliability of this distribution network. Among the different systems that compose the smart grid, the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is one of the most developed nowadays, as hundred of smart metering networks are being deployed in this moment all over the world. These smart meters use different communications protocols so a tool to compare their performance in real networks would be very useful at this moment. To solve this problem, in this paper it is presented a simulation framework that can be used to evaluate the performance of these protocols in real power line networks with only minor changes in the code version that is introduced in real meters. This simulator has been used to compare two of the smart metering protocols available at this moment (i.e. PRIME and ECSS).