A Wireless Sensor Network for Substation Monitoring and Control in the Smart Grid

A substation is an essential part of an electric system. It is where important functions such as transforming voltage from high to low take place. Substation monitoring has become a necessity for the next generation power grid. The information collected in an electric substation about the state of its components and the flow of electricity will give the electrical utility provider a clearer view and more control over that substation. A wireless sensor network, with its sink able to communicate with the utility´s control system, constitutes an attractive technology to be deployed in a substation in order to collect the needed information. However, intelligent management of this data, to allow the detection of faults and to prolong the sensor nodes´ lifetime, is yet to be provided and can be introduced with the use of a multi-agent system. That is why in this paper an agent-based algorithm is proposed to achieve these goals. Simulation results show improved performances, in terms of the nodes´ energy consumption and the number of sent messages in the network, compared to a value reporting approach where each detected information is directly sent to the sink without any processing.