The development of an Active Network Management test-bed using communications emulation

Active Network Management (ANM) has been trialed in recent years to tackle constraints on the grid caused by increased penetration of Distributed Generation. The selection of communication channels is a key element of delivering the benefits of ANM. Understanding the performance of a solution prior to implementation is an invaluable tool as utilities and generators decide on what technologies to invest in. Thus it is the aim of this paper to present a flexible test-bed for ANM solutions which makes use of an open source communications emulation tool, NS-3.