Optimizing Neighborhood Area Network Topology for Enhanced Communication in Smart Grid

In modern power grids, smart meters, as a type of consumer electronics, act as metering and communication nodes, which form Neighborhood Area Networks (NANs) spanning electricity distribution networks from substations to energy producers and consumers. In smart meter communication, wireless technologies have been widely adopted due to their inherent advantages of easier installation, flexibility, and low cost. For achieving low-latency communications in NANs, it is crucial to optimize the existing topology to enhance communication efficiency. However, optimizing the NAN topology is a challenging task due to the computational infeasibility of obtaining the optimal solution. To tackle this challenge, topology optimization in NANs is first formulated into a combinatorial optimization problem. After that, a heuristic solution driven by complex network theory is presented to solve the formulated optimization problem. The proposed heuristic solution consists of an effective network rewiring scheme and a long-range edge connection strategy. The rewiring optimizes the topology of wireless NANs to reduce local network length, whilst the long-range edge connection best pairs a small number of NAN nodes to reduce global network length. Numerical studies are conducted on diverse case studies to demonstrate the presented solution to enhance communication efficiency in smart grid NANs, outperforming the benchmark schemes.