SDN-Enabled Communication Network Framework for Energy Internet

Abstract

To support distributed energy generators and improve energy utilization, energy Internet has attracted global research focus. In China, energy Internet has been proposed as an important issue of government and institutes. However, managing a large amount of distributed generators requires smart, low-latency, reliable, and safe networking infrastructure, which cannot be supported by traditional networks in power grids. In order to design and construct smart and flexible energy Internet, we proposed a software defined network framework with both microgrid cluster level and global grid level designed by a hierarchical manner, which will bring flexibility, efficiency, and reliability for power grid networks. Finally, we evaluate and verify the performance of this framework in terms of latency, reliability, and security by both theoretical analysis and real-world experiments.