INTEROPERABLE NAN STANDARDS: A PATH TO COST-EFFECTIVE SMART GRID SOLUTIONS

Neighborhood area networks (NAN) are an important part of the smart grid (SG) communication systems.A neighborhood area network implies that the network links multiple devices in a relatively small or neighborhood sized geographic area. Without open communication standards that serve NAN applications, utility companies are forced to lock into a single vendors solution once a NAN system is deployed. A proprietary solution places limits on which devices can operate within the NAN. In addition to providing more options for which devices can operate in the network, interoperable NAN standards have economic benefits as well. Historically, DAPs collect information from endpoints and provide this information over a wide area network (WAN) communication link to a utility system that can then publish the data for a variety of utility purposes. There are typically many DAPs in a given utility network. A NAN consists of thousands to millions of devices distributed across both urban and rural areas.