Coverage and capacity analysis of wireless M2M technologies for smart distribution grid services

This paper provides a performance evaluation of wireless Machine-to-Machine technologies for communication networks enabling Smart Distribution Grid operation. A challenging task raised by different architectural solutions for integrating households into the Smart Grid is given by the last mile connectivity. Nowadays sub-GHz wireless networks deployed for automated meter reading offer a reliable solution due to the lower frequency range and flexible infrastructures for outhouse installations and dedicated meter reading service on a low-bitrate long-term interval. By adding more functionality, like demand side management and distributed energy resources at the households into the Smart Grid, broadband radio service are required to cover the higher demands on data rate, message frequency and quality-of-service. Therefore several additional frequency options are discussed for existing broadband cellular systems, focusing on the integration of outdoor, indoor and basement installation of the Smart Grid devices. Within this work, these frequency options for cellular networks are analyzed for multiple installation scenarios based on ray tracing simulation, reference measurements and analytical channel models and a novel channel model for the prediction of the building penetration loss to basements is derived and presented. In a second step a traffic capacity analysis is performed in order to estimate the system performance parameters of different technologies and to show the influence of actual deployment scenarios for network planning of communication networks for Smart Distribution Grid scenarios.