Cost and Benefits of Denser Topologies for the Smart Grid

The Smart Grid promises to reshape how electricity is generated, distributed, and used. More delocalized generation based on renewable sources will transform end-users into prosumers (producers and consumers) of energy. These will require electric and supporting ICT infrastructures to be able to openly access the energy market. In this paper, we focus on the electric infrastructure issue related to the Smart Grid topic. We consider network models from the literature of Complex Network Analysis and evaluate their ability to be used for the Distribution Grid to reduce the cost of electricity distribution based on topological property. Our initial conclusion is that denser topologies are helpful to reach the goal. However, the cost of realizing such topologies in terms of cabling is not negligible, as we show.