Smart5Grid - demonstration of 5g solutions for smart energy grids of the future
5G is envisioned to be the first global technology standard that will address the variety of future use cases of the energy sector, by ensuring that both the radio and core network performance requirements can be met in terms of end-to-end latency, reliability and availability. Up-to-now, the main discussion for 5G has been to support the next wave of smart grid features and efficiency at the behind-the-meter level, by integrating many low-voltage devices into the power grid through low-cost connections, managing demand and load balance domestically, aiming the reduction of the electricity peaks and energy costs. However, it is expected that, as the emergence of smart grids will grow, a lion share of the growth will take place in the medium-voltage levels: towards secondary substations and distributed energy resources, as well as between secondary substations and primary substation. Smart5Grid aims to revolutionise the Energy Vertical industry through the successful establishment of four fundamental functions of modern smart grids, i.e., (i) automatic power distribution grid fault detection, (ii) remote inspection of automatically delimited working areas at distribution level, (iii) millisecond level precise distribution generation control, and (iv) real-time wide area monitoring in a creative cross-border scenario, thus assisting power grid operators and other energy stakeholders (e.g., smart grid operators, distribution system operators/transmission system operators, energy service providers, etc.)
Not only this. Smart5Grid introduces an open 5G experimental facility, supporting integration, testing and validation of existing and new 5G services and NetApps from third parties (i.e., SMEs, developers, engineers, etc., that do not belong in the consortium) since underpinning experimentation with a fully softwarised 5G platform for the energy vertical industry is one of the key targets of the proposal. Moreover, in order to supply start-ups and newcomers with the opportunity to accelerate their growth in the high impact industry of the energy vertical, Smart5Grid provides an open access NetApp repository, provisioning support and assistance to third parties through a clear and trustworthy experimentation roadmap.