Integrating legacy communications on the Smart Grid highway

The vision of the Smart Gird is to be able to connect any device to any other anywhere at any time. The network infrastructure solution looked at is IP-based; an Internet for electricity. Protective relays and teleprotection devices that use data communications as part of its operating principle have very high requirements with regards to latency and reliability. Providing that channel over an IP-based infrastructure poses a challenge for existing protective relays and teleprotection devices (pilot protection) that are designed for direct fiber, T1 or SONET networks. This paper proposes a solution of how to integrate these legacy devices into a Smart Grid based on IP communications.