Reliability study of selected communication systems for energy grid

The concept of Smart Grid technology, which promises highly efficient and dynamic energy systems, has to be backed by suitable information and communication system. The availability and reliability must be important features of the power energy grid. These are features which must satisfy too the communication network built to support it. The paper analyses theoretical basis and presents selected practical experience with circuit oriented and packet oriented network technologies to enable build of the fault tolerant systems. This paper describes availability model of the communication network with different network technology based on our own experiences and experiments. The common topology with path protection on optical fibres is considered.