Terrestrial-Satellite Hybrid Backbone Communication Network for Smart Power Grid

A smart power system demands a strong and self-healing communication system with greater capacity. In China, as the ultra high voltage transmission lines and large scale interconnected grids are expanding throughout the nation, disaster-tolerant communication network is essential for reliable system operation and control. In this paper, we propose a hybrid communication network utilizing both terrestrial and satellite links to improve the system reliability. The adaptive link selection protocol at network layer is developed to facilitate the network integrity. A modification of transport protocol over satellite communication is also proposed to better exploit the limited bandwidth resources. The performance analysis and field trial of the proposed scheme based on the practical network configuration in Sichuan power grid is thoroughly studied. The results showed a great bandwidth saving of satellite resources without loss of network integrity.