Information access for event-driven smart grid controllers

Abstract Control of assets in electricity distribution grids is becoming an increasingly interesting solution to address challenges arising in the grid with an increasing penetration of distributed renewable energy generation. This paper looks at a voltage control scenario in low voltage (LV) distribution grids, which targets a reduction of over- and under voltage level situations by adjusting reactive power production of selected low voltage grid assets. The paper models different information access schemes between remote assets and controller, which is activated only when certain voltage thresholds have been crossed at any measurement point in the grid. We assess the information access methods on information reliability and how this affects control performance. We focus on two different information quality metrics; (1) information age and (2) mismatch probability, which are expressed via stochastic models. We investigate in this paper the suitability for using these two metrics for optimization in a voltage grid control scenario. We conclude that, while the mismatch probability is very useful compared to the simpler information age metric from a network designers and operators point of view in setting quality of service requirements, it is not as helpful for control engineers.