On the Use of Synchronized LoRaWAN for the Coordination of Distributed Energy Resources in Smart Grids

The recent advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are laying down the foundations of future energy systems. The growing availability of reliable and cost-effective ICT solutions are indeed offering the opportunity for the implementation of advanced monitoring and control functions over Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), thus fostering the transition towards decentralized and decarbonized energy systems. The integration of ICT in electrical equipment (such as power converters, metering devices, and protections) is essential for the monitoring and the coordinated control of heterogeneous energy resources, particularly in intermittent and distributed scenarios. Nevertheless, the implementation of such control approaches relies, in the end, on the availability of proper communication infrastructures. The adoption of wired infrastructures (such as field-bus, ethernet, or fiber optic systems) may however imply high installation costs, particularly for complex end-users' systems. To cope with this issue, in this study the use of a wireless network based on the LoRaWAN technology is proposed to implement the monitoring and the coordinated control of dispersed DERs. A proper communication architecture is proposed and discussed in terms of the required coverage range and latency. Finally, a scalability analysis is also presented, which aims at evaluating the number of devices that can be supervised by a single LoRaWAN gateway, by considering the expected data throughput, and the duty cycle limitations.