Utilities are rapidly expanding their infrastructure to deal with the increasing demands from population growth, distributed energy resources, and growing demand for electricity. This growth demands rapid scaling of communication capabilities to monitor and control the additional assets added to the power grid. The need for enhancing security and growing with stability is immediate.
Growing with stability:
Stability in a new or existing communication network often is driven by consistency in technological processes and capabilities. Many of the wireless networks serving the utility smart grid are specialized and purpose-built. While this is very conducive to running specific use cases, it can be limiting as new use cases are identified.
Utilities rely on connectivity and communication for a number of different devices in the smart grid. Some line monitoring devices require low latency and instant reaction speeds from their network. Others, like smart meters, can operate with significantly more latency, needing only to transmit data at a certain interval. To address the diversity of use cases, many utilities silo their devices into a number of smaller proprietary non-LTE networks, customized for specific use cases. This allows them to operate each at the speed and latency appropriate for each device, but this process creates a decentralized, challenging web of networks to operate and is still not as cost-friendly as a more efficient, multipurpose LTE network.
Use of 3GPP standardized networks allow for leveraging a vast body of global and local experience in similar networks with a well established and rapidly growing ecosystem. These multipurpose networks use devices that make growth easier at lower price points as they are part of global/local economies of scale in devices and infrastructure. The interoperability between existing public and newly minted private wireless networks is easily handled due to the same consistency brought about through standards. Devices are built to handle multiple subscriptions across public and private networks to allow for remote transition from public to private networks as the network grows. The public network then acts as a fallback in case of private network failure - bringing resilience to the utility’s communication network. This brings stability and reliability to network growth for utilities.Â
Cyber-secure Private Wireless
Security is a primary driver and critical in utilities’ mission-critical networks. In addition to the traditional protection offered for infrastructure assets in public networks, private networks also need to ensure cybersecurity of devices in the smart grid. The wealth of knowledge and robustness of security protocols at different layers of the communication stack is visualized in the figure above. Private wireless LTE/5G networks are structured to have separation of setup, data, and network monitoring/OAM traffic. This allows for insulation of critical parts of the network from one another. Integration of private wireless security into existing cybersecurity (SIEM, SOC) is an important consideration. The ability to map device traffic to wireless subscription allows for security against cloned and rogue devices in the network. Network security architecture and protocols allow for the simultaneous use of existing trusted and untrusted backbone communications to introduce wireless technology. Finally, application level security enforced through the wireless network ensures that backend systems are not a backdoor to gaps in cybersecurityÂ
Flexibility in network architecture, using economies of scale in device and network assets–coupled with well-established cybersecurity capabilities and protocols–enable enhanced security and stability with utility private wireless networks. As the smart grid goes through much delayed evolution and growth, private wireless is here to assist and enable that transformation.