ZigBee Investigation Within Smart Micro Grid

Abstract: Nowadays, the current energy grid is evolving into a smart grid. Communications research, especially wireless communications research, is considered as part of a bigger challenge and is seen as a great enabler for future Smart Grids. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has drawn wide attention on communicating data for Smart Grid and domestic energy management systems. In order to address this issue, this paper presents some of the challenges of WSN system based on the ZigBee technology (IEEE 802.15.4) in Smart Micro Grid. The simulation results with Opnet Modeler obtained show that the application of the WSN based on the ZigBee technology may be very promising in several Smart Micro Grids and Smart Grids applications such as the energy control and management. In this work, we also investigate the experimental performance of ZigBee based on measurements of the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in different parts of the Smart Home. Such models help modelling and sizing Micro Grid systems.

Keywords: Smart Micro Grid; Smart Home; WSN; ZigBee, RSSI.