The main motivation of the project “Programmable and Robust Smart Grid Data and Control” (RASnet) is driven by our current systems research of ICT for Low-Voltage grids and its open question of how to properly make use of all available data-links between the electrical grid and its operator. To ensure a robust operation of a low-voltage grid with significant proportion of renewable energy sources within the required power-quality specifications, operators need to be able to observe the dynamic power quality state and gain control of its generation sources, both in the time domain of milliseconds. The figure below illustrates the clear mismatch between locations with renewable energy generation and available broadband ICT.

With our proposed RASnet project, we aim to analyze the potential integration of current 3G/4G networks in a productive broadband network of a rural Wireless ISP (WISP), Evernet, with significant renewable energies. We want to extend our current research infrastructure placed in the WISP network  in such a way that the current set of uplinks (dsl, vdsl, satellite) is extended to consider and integrate 3G/4G network links  as additional  uplink connections to increase the grid operator’s main goal of a robustness monitoring and control channel to his grid.
The goals of the RASnet research proposal are:

• Integration of 5 Monroe nodes into the productive WISP infrastructure from Evernet, which serves ~130 households across 5 villages based on Linux OpenWrt-WiFi-routers, including 13 Photovoltaic-systems and 2 Windparks.
• Performing long-term measurement trials to analyse the performance of rural 3G and 4G networks in order to consider them as alternative uplinks to monitor and control the electrical grid state with low latency via a robust feedback channel
• Analysing Monroe data-traces to generate proper input parameters for our SDN controller about available latency and data-rate in order to increase overall goal of providing a programmable path for ultra-robust data and control access to the Smart Grid operator.
• Extracting and disseminating meaningful and generalized insights for 5G research community on attaining ultra-reliable and low-latency communications using SDN-based aggregation of heterogeneous access technologies.

Website for Monroe: https://www.monroe-project.eu/