Chair:  Dejan Vukobratovic @ University of Novi Sad, Serbia, Co-Chair: Gregor Verbic @ University of Sidney)

Communication and networking technologies are essential for the smart grid in order to access distributed sensor information and to communicate configurations and set-points to actuators. They are critical to enable automated and distributed energy generation and efficient bidirectional power flows. Key tasks entail the integration, effective cooperation, and information interchange among the many interconnected elements of the electric power grid. The interest group focuses on several aspects of communication technology and networking for smart grid scenarios such as:

• Wireless, wireline, power line and optical communication systems for smart grids
• Communication protocols optimized for low latency control applications
• Physical and medium access control protocols and algorithms
• Signal processing and coding techniques for energy related sensor information
• Physical layer security aspects
• Resource management and cross-layer optimization
• Capacity and network planning, resource and service discovery
• Distributed network protocols and hybrid communication technologies
• Scalable network and system architectures
• Coexistence, convergence and interoperability mechanisms
• ­Solutions for substation automation and control of distributed energy resources
• Lightweight IP networking stacks for constrained devices
• Data models and communication-aware data management solutions for smart metering and smart grids
• Integration of smart meters (including gas and water meters) in smart grid ICT networks
• Field trials and results of smart metering and smart grid communication solutions