A Virtual Laboratory for Micro-Grid information and communication infrastructures

Testing smart grid information and communication (ICT) infrastructures is imperative to ensure that they meet industry requirements and standards and do not compromise the grid reliability. Within the micro-grid, this requires identifying and testing ICT infrastructures for communication between distributed energy resources, building, substations, etc. To evaluate various ICT infrastructures for micro-grid deployment, this work introduces the Virtual Micro-Grid Laboratory (VMGL) and provides a preliminary analysis of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) as a micro-grid communication infrastructure.