A comparison of Web service technologies for smart meter data exchange

This paper analyzes different Web service technologies that can be used for data exchange in Smart Grids. The focus is put on smart metering in electricity networks and the required data exchange for different application scenarios. It contributes a detailed comparison of available interface technologies, in particular Web services. The evaluation is performed based on a qualitative comparison using a criteria catalogue and literature research and a quantitative comparison based on an empirical field test using a test bed. The results show that binary protocols require less computational resources but lack several qualitative advantages. Furthermore it can be seen that recent optimizations for XML data exchange reduce the performance gap.