The main supporting technologies of smart grid include reliable information technology for collecting, storing, analyzing, processing and displaying massive information data, high-speed, two-way, real-time and integrated communication technology, intelligent dispatching technology for optimizing resource allocation, making scientific decisions, efficiently managing grid operation, quickly responding to grid anomalies and accidents, power consumption and forecasting technology, distributed energy access technology for medium and low voltage distribution networks, and planning control technology including power quality and power factor.
The Role of Internet of Things Related Technologies in Smart Grid
In the current power grid, sensors are widely used, but mainly electromechanical sensors, whose acquisition mode is often physical, and the transmitted signals are often analog, which determines that they are often transmitted through cables. Intelligent sensors are not only related to sensing technology, but also directly related to micromechanics, microelectronics, digital signal processing and network communication.
The way it obtains information is often to directly convert the information it needs to obtain into optical signals or electrical signals and output them in the form of digital quantities. The intelligent sensor also has a certain information storage and analysis ability, which can process the primary information and then transmit it to the next level, avoiding the over-processing of information by the superior equipment and saving the network traffic.
In the Internet of Things technology, signals are generally transmitted through optical cables. For signals that are inconvenient to be directly transmitted by wire, such as the state quantity inside the equipment, wireless transmission can also be used to ensure the real-time performance of the data. In the main station, because the transmitted data is digital, complex data conversion and processing are avoided, and these advantages should be brought into play. However, the power grid requires high reliability of information, especially in information transmission.
If it is in the civil or commercial industry, the reliability requirements for information transmission are low, and the current reliability level of the Internet of Things can be competent. However, for the power grid, the result of information transmission error is very serious, which may lead to misoperation of automatic devices in the power grid, cutting off a large number of loads during normal operation, or major mistakes in electric energy measurement. When the reliability cannot be guaranteed, the important advantage of the Internet of Things technology-information transmission will be difficult to play its role, which correspondingly leads to the application layer above the network layer being unable to be applied to the smart grid.