In order to address, assess and evaluate the challenges outlined above, possible future scenarios of ICT disruptions will be defined over the course of the project.
Building on this, a catalogue of fault detection measures and diagnostic procedures will be created, listing measures for the end-to-end communication between the DSO and controllable end devices as well as within the HEMS. This serves as the basis for further work in the field of communication reliability.
To reduce the susceptibility of ICT communication to disruption, the project develops and implements measures at the level of the network management system and of the communication module of the smart meter gateway in prototype form. The aim is to systematically capture and evaluate the operational and quality parameters of WAN communication and to make them usable for the early detection of communication disruptions. The approaches developed contribute to increasing the reliability of control measures, to managing communication failures more robustly, and to reducing their impact on downstream operational and control processes in the distribution grid. This makes a substantial contribution to increasing the resilience of the ICT infrastructure within the intelligent metering system.
A further objective is the analysis of the impact of the disruption scenarios on the operation of the distribution grids, should the fault remain undetected. This also includes possible interactions between different disruptions or cascading effects.
On the basis of the impacts of communication disruptions on the low-voltage networks of the critical electricity infrastructure, compensation measures are developed and evaluated. These may be preventive or curative in nature, whereby various categories are investigated and compared: measures at individual installations or grid components, operating strategies of home energy management systems (HEMS), protocols/processes within the SMGW, and grid control concepts.
The compensation measures developed, and their contribution to reducing the fault impact at installation, household, grid and system level, are investigated by simulation, in the laboratory and in a field test. The aim is a sensible trade-off between resilient grid operation and a minimally invasive restriction on the network user of the low-voltage grid.
The validation of the benefits of using a digital twin is carried out in a field test. Through the use of the digital twin, the aim is to represent the measurement data, to transmit control data via the SMGW, among other means, and to demonstrate their implementation through analysis of the measured values.
From the results of the simulations, the laboratory tests and the field test, assessments are derived evaluating the added value offered by communication via the SMGW in the distribution grid. This includes the assessment of both directions of communication: the possible added value for distribution grid monitoring through signals from the SMGW to the digital twin or the grid operator, as well as the added value for congestion avoidance through the sending of control commands from the grid operator to HEMS or individual installations. Furthermore, it is assessed how fault diagnosis can provide benefits for power grid fault detection.
Furthermore, for the ICT disruptions identified within the project, assessments of the impacts on the operation of the German and European interconnected system, respectively, will be made, for example whether critical situations can arise in low-voltage networks as a result of communication disruptions. At the same time, the effects of the compensation measures developed, and thus a possible solution to the challenge, are to be analysed.
The knowledge acquired through these investigations is intended to be fed into the discourse on the topic of ICT resilience. In this context, it is relevant that the significance of ICT at the low-voltage level will increase significantly over the coming decade, and indeed already within the next few years. The project aims to extend research in this field, so that large-scale disruptions can be minimised as effectively as possible through the resilience of this component (SMGW). This can, on the one hand, bring greater attention to this challenge, and, through the transfer of the knowledge acquired into expert committees and interested circles, the findings can contribute to increased energy system resilience.
