Cooperative communications and mesh networks for the smart grid data backhaul

Smart grid (SG) is the next generation electrical power grid which will provide reliable, efficient and secure energy generation and distribution. To achieve these goals, data such as smart meter (SM) information will be sent to the control center for analysis and decision-making. However, the existing data backhaul network has limited coverage and data rates, is inflexible, and has low reliability. In this paper, a new architecture for the SG data backhaul network is proposed to improve both the coverage and reliability. Power consumption and other information is sent by the SMs to a data aggregation point (DAP) via a wireless mesh network to support SG requirements such as self-healing and throughput. The DAPs employ cooperative communications to transmit this data to the control center. This improves the coverage and reliability of the backhaul network which results in better power supply decisions at the control center.