Effect of 5G communication service failure on placement of Intelligent Electronic Devices in Smart Distribution Grids

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is fundamental to guarantee efficient monitoring, control and protection of smart distribution grids by interconnected Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs). The impact of failures in the IEDs communication service, and the dependency between the communication network and the power grid, need to be understood and taken into account when determining the optimal placement of IEDs. In this paper, the main objective is to investigate how loss of the communication service that connects the IEDs to Distribution Management System (DMS), will affect the placement of IEDs for smart grid monitoring and control. It is assessed the impact of 5G communication service failure on the IEDs placement with the objective to minimize the interruption costs (Cost of Energy Not Supplied), and the yearly expenses of the IEDs installed. The method is tested on the IEEE 33-bus radial distribution system, with a 5G communication network, covering both rural and urban areas. The results suggest a need for more IEDs per bus in the rural area because the power lines are longer, and the failure rates are higher than in the urban area. Furthermore, when introducing sub-regions that have higher power line failure rates and less reliable communication service, we observe that more IEDs are suggested to be placed in these regions. This demonstrates that methods for IEDs placement should take into consideration the ICT communication service failures, especially in sub-regions with higher power line failure rates and/or unstable ICT communication service that comes as result of failures in the power grid.