Secure cloud access to smart grid measurements

With the proliferation of renewable energy sources and the migration of the grid from traditional centralized models towards a distributed network of islands and micro grids, the task of balancing and coordinating it, growths exponentially. The number of different communication standards supported by equipment from different vendors also does not make things easier.

What if the whole problem could be radically simplified by providing a unified cloud based, interface that collects data from the substations and other grid actors?

Using configurable protocol conversion gateways, all the measurements could be uploaded to the cloud and be made available to SCADA systems and analytic tools via a set of well defined and generic APIs. This way processing the measurements generated by the grid would be logically separated from the communication channels of the equipment generating the data.

Of course, this is very sensitive information and cybersecurity is paramount. However this could be addressed by deployment of encryption and cyclic exchange of the cipher keys with tools implementing relevant industry standards.

The picture below illustrates the whole idea. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to send me an email: jmazan@jpembedded.com

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