Abstract

Power quality and reliability issues are big challenges to both service provider and consumers in conventional power grids. The ongoing technological advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) era provide better solutions to enhance the management of these challenges and enforce the measures of a Smart Grid (SG). Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Smart Metering (SM) technologies are enabler technologies that can modernize the conventional power grid through exposing the hidden details of electrical power by introducing two-way communication scheme during power transaction process between utilities and consumers. Throughout literature, AMI and SM technologies are widely discussed. However, few studies discuss the role of SM in power quality and reliability monitoring in IoTenabled SGs. Hence, the paper aims to comprehensively review the feasibility of employing SM for power quality and reliability monitoring. First, we provide a detailed overview about the SMs, wireless communication technologies, and routing algorithms as enabling technologies in AMI. Then, we categorize the existing literature works that target power quality and reliability monitoring. Finally, open research issues are outlined based on shortages in the existing literature.

INTRODUCTION

Electrical power is one of the essential factors for the development of societies by improving life quality. However, the conditions in power industry are changing as electricity demand and renewable integration increase. The increased stress on power demand has produced a burden on the conventional power production resources. With the noticeable decline in conventional power resources reserves and the recent attention on environmental issues associated with producing power from fossil fuel based resources, Power utilities and investors are motivated to invest into other sustainable ways of power production in order to meet the demand. For instance, one aim of the European 20/20/20 strategy is to increase the share of renewable energy generation up to 20% by 2020 [1]. Renewable resources are intermittent by nature. The increased penetration of those non-dispatchable energy sources into the existing power grid makes it more challenging for utilities to deliver reliable and good quality power. Fortunately, with the recent technological advancements, IoT-inspired applications can offer great solutions to the aforementioned challenges by providing twoway communication schemes which can help in transforming conventional power grids into modernized SGs. In fact, the IoT paradigm is an essential segment of the modern SGs, especially in residential and commercial buildings’ applications [2]. The smart cities paradigm is also another demanding project for IoTenabled SGs [3]. Both of these emerging paradigms, imply thatthere will be a noticeable increase in the usage of sensor networks for providing useful data that enable the efficient control and management of cities [3], [4].