Abstract
Smart Grid’s success heavily lies in the communication infrastructure underneath it. In Smart Grid, Neighborhood Area Network has a role to play in the HOME-to-HOME or HOME-to-GRID communication. There are quite a few technologies in contention to be used to implement neighborhood area network. In this project the analysis for communication protocols for Neighborhood Area Network for Smart Grid is done by considering few wireless protocols or standards like IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, IEEE 802.15.4, 3G and few wired standards like Power Line Communication and Optical Fiber Communication. The requirements of the protocols/standards considered for Neighborhood Area Network for Smart Grid are identified as reliable, secure, power efficient, low latency, low cost, diverse path, scalable technology, ability to support bursty, asynchronous upstream traffic. The research also includes analysis of few routing and transport protocols which are used in wired and wireless networks. In Transport Protocols, UDP is a well suited protocol over all kinds of media which enable time critical communication capabilities. For non time critical applications TCP or SCTP could be considered. For Neighborhood Area Networks, the protocols/standards that are recommended in this project are IEEE 802.11 [Wi-Fi] and Cellular technology [GSM].