Hierarchical Distribution Grid Intelligence: Using Edge Compute, Communications, and IoT Technologies

Due to the proliferation of internet-of-things (IoT)-based technologies in the last several years, digital computing hardware and software technologies have seen massive performance improvement. Additionally, these technologies provide lower costs for comparatively higher computation and storage, more compact size hardware, and compatibility with a large selection of operating systems. Furthermore, communication protocols have increased the penetration of single-board computers in many consumer and industrial applications. This article presents the application of a state-of-the-art edge computing infrastructure to the electrical power distribution grid. Electrical power distribution is becoming increasingly complex with the large degree of integration of distributed energy resources (DERs). The distribution system also experiences many different undesired events, such as different types of temporary and permanent faults, loss of measurement data, and cyberattacks. This article highlights a small-scale experimental validation of edge computing in power distribution automation that can be used for classifying different faults, detecting anomalies in the grid, measurement data recovery, and other advanced analytics techniques.