A Survey of Smart Grid Emerging Use Cases and Relevant 5G and 6G Capabilities and Features
For researchers and engineers in smart grid and telecommunications, this work bridges the gap between grid and communication domains by providing quantified requirements, though it is a survey without novel technical contributions.
This survey quantifies service requirements for emerging Smart Grid use cases and maps them to 5G/6G capabilities like network slicing and edge computing, identifying open challenges for next-generation SG systems.
The growing complexity of modern energy systems has led to the adoption of Smart Grid (SG) that use advanced communication technologies to facilitate efficient, reliable, secure, and sustainable energy operation and management. Unlike existing surveys that often treat grid and communication domains separately, this work rigorously quantifies service requirements for high-complexity emerging scenarios. It provides a comprehensive overview of SG architecture that integrates digital communication infrastructure with distributed energy resources (DERs), microgrids, energy storage systems, and cybersecurity frameworks. Furthermore, emerging SG use cases such as smart distributed voltage control, real-time fault detection and self-healing, smart and autonomous monitoring, and predictive maintenance are identified, and more importantly, service performance requirements associated with these use cases have been quantified. Additionally, key capabilities and emerging SG enablers of fifth-generation (5G) and sixth-generation (6G) networks are described. These capabilities and enablers include network slicing, edge computing, spectrum management, artificial intelligence (AI) driven optimization, digital twins, and Open-Radio Access Network (O-RAN). Finally, the paper discusses open challenges and future research directions for designing scalable, intelligent, and secure next-generation SG systems.