Optimized Data Acquisition Point Placement for an Advanced Metering Infrastructure Based on Power Line Communication Technology

Different communication technologies have been suggested for developing the smart grid communication network. Among these communication technologies, power line communication (PLC) has widely been used, as it has a large coverage range and can access remote areas using existing infrastructures. In this paper, we derive a mathematical model for devising an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in the distribution grid based on PLC technology. In order to collect the traffic from thousands of smart meters, intermediary data collectors are placed on selected distribution transformers. However, an optimized placement of data collectors is necessary in order to meet the strict latency requirements needed for time-critical traffic from the meters. For this, we first formulate the latency based on the medium access characteristics of the powerline intelligent metering evolution standard. We then propose an optimization platform for efficiently placing data collectors in such a way that the reliability requirement for the smart grid traffic is ensured and also the installation cost is minimized. We apply the devised optimization solution to realistic examples of AMIs, and we show the effectiveness of our approach through numerical performance evaluation.