Peer-to-Peer Networks Applied to Power Grid

In order to improve and deploy distributed control systems for the power grid a robust ICT infrastructure is required partially based on dependable middleware that exploits redundancy and diversity in communication networks. The dynamic nature of power grid applications makes necessity of using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks in this system. The main requirements of P2P networks for power grid are that they are scalable, self-organizing and distributed. Furthermore they degrade gracefully in the advent of failures, restore automatically after repair and need to cope with dynamic environment. This paper at first classifies P2P networks according their architecture and compares them. Then it analyzes P2P networks based on their architectures for controlling power grid components. It shows hybrid decentralized indexing P2P networks are best choice and most suitable architecture for power grid.