On Effectiveness of Smart Grid Applications Using Co-Simulation

The smart grid is a complex system that comprises components from both the power grid and communication networks. To understand the behavior of such a complex system, co-simulation is a viable tool to capture the interaction and the reciprocal effects between a communication network and a physical power grid. In this paper, we systematically review the existing efforts of co-simulation and design a framework to explore co-simulation scenarios. Using the demand response and energy price as examples of smart grid applications and operating the communication network under various conditions (e.g., normal operation, performance degrade, and security threats), we implement these scenarios and conduct a performance evaluation of smart grid applications by leveraging a co-simulation platform.