Smart Grid and Telecommunication network management made easier

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Both Smart Grid and Telecommunication networks are becoming increasingly larger with the amount of elements connected to them constantly growing. This in turn highlights the importance of proper ICT tools for making network management easier. Network anomalies need to be detected in real time to mitigate their effects and, additionally, end users require more intuitive control tools. BaseN and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) have co-operated in Eurostars-funded project DYNE to make identifying critical signals coming from deluges of data easier. BaseN chose to participate in DYNE as making the complex more manageable is very relevant for the overall Internet of Things and FHNW’s understanding of semantic technologies and discrete event analysis facilitates this in great manner.

As utilities are steadily being replaced by more and more small-scale renewable energy sources, the power flows will be much more influenced by the weather and with that bringing new strains to the Smart Grid network management. Collected data from the many different elements needs to be enriched in order to make large dynamic networks manageable. The network must be monitored as a whole, understanding the structure in addition to individual measurements. Good examples of this are wide area weather conditions impacting renewal energy production, or power quality analysis over a wider area of network. For instance, recording the median performance of the solar panels in one area and comparing every single one against it can easily identify underperforming solar panels and by that trigger actions to raise the panel’s productivity. 

In the same way, telecommunication networks profit from the ability to easily identify important signals, such as performance deterioration of single network elements, from multiple streams of real time data. Through awareness of the overall state of all measurements and identifying important hierarchies, the system can point directly towards the root causes of problems without highlighting lower level events that arise as by-products. 

DYNE will officially end in late May 2015 after which the services developed during the project will be part of the BaseN Software-as-a-Service offering.