Applications of ZigBee in Smart Grid Environment: a review R. Zafar 1 , U. Naeem 2 , W. Ali 3 , A. Mahmood 4,* EE, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Islamabad, Pakistan 1 rehmanzafar.ciit@gmail.com 2 knowledge.ilm4444@gmail.com 3 wamiqali12@yahoo.com 4,* Corresponding Author: anzarmahmood@comsats.edu.pk, anzarmahmood@gmail.com Abstract— Smart grid concept is prevailing rapidly in electrical engineering research and it is expected to provide sustainable and efficient energy services with advanced control and communications infrastructure in smart grid environment. Smart grid involves all the stakeholders of power systems, from generation to consumption, with bi-directional flow of power and information. Communications technologies are the vital part of the smart grid and enable the utility to manage the tasks like energy management in Home Area Networks (HANs), Neighbor Area Network (NANs), and Wide Area Network (WANs) etc. This paper presents a review of ZigBee communication technology for smart grid applications like Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS), Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Electric Vehicles (EVs) etc. Moreover, specifications, features and drawbacks of ZigBee have also been discussed in detail. Keywords—Smart grid; ZigBee; Energy Management; I. INTRODUCTION Worldwide demand for the energy is increasing day by day. Most of the energy demand is met by the non-renewable energy resources like coal plants, nuclear plants, petroleum plants, natural gas plants. Non-renewable energy resources cause the unpleasant effects on climate. Conventional power grid has a centralized architecture and merely delivers and breaks electricity[1]. The conventional electric power grid is in process of significant transition into an intelligent grid to meet the increasing energy demand which is known as smart grid[2]. Smart grid is an advanced power infrastructure, which delivers energy from supplier to consumer using bi directional communication to enhance the grid reliability and energy efficiency[1]. The important features of intelligent or smart grid include the automation, integration, optimization, monitoring, protection and security of the energy flow from generation to the consumers end. Communication technologies are very important in order to achieve the key features of smart grid. There are number of communication technologies such as ZigBee Bluetooth, Wireless LAN (Wi-fi), WiMAX and GSM/GPRS, which can be used according to the needs of the applications in smart grid like Home Area Automation, Substation Automation, Home Energy Management System (HEMS), Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Electric Vehicles (EVs) etc. This article discusses the features and uses of ZigBee in smart grid with more detail. A review of ZigBee communication technology in smart grid applications is presented in this paper. The paper is organized as: section II is devoted to specifications, features and drawbacks of ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4). Section III presents the uses of ZigBee in smart grid applications such as HEMS, AMI, EVs etc. and consequently conclusions are drawn in Section IV. II. ZIGBEE (IEEE 802.15.4) SPECIFICATIONS, FEATURES AND DRAWBACKS A. Specifications ZigBee is a wireless communication technology based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard and uses Personal Area Network (PAN) and Peer-to-Peer(P2P) networks [3]. ZigBee is better suited for sensors and controlling device [3] It operates at 868MHz in Europe, 915MHz in United States and 2.4GHz worldwide [4], [5]. IEEE802.15.4 standard defines Physical layer (PHY) and Media Access layer of the protocol stack and ZigBee Alliance defines the structure of the next two layers of stack, Network layer and Application layer [6]. ZigBee protocol stack is shown in Fig.1. ZigBee provides data rate 20~250kpbs (20kbps at 868MHz, 40kbps at 915MHz, and 250kbps at 2.4GHz) [7]. It has coverage range up to 100 meter and consumes low power [8], [9]. Comparison of ZigBee, Bluetooth and Wi-Max is tabulated in Table I. B. Features ZigBee has the prominent features as depicted in Fig. 2.  Low Power Consumption: It consumes power up to 100mW. It uses two AA batteries which are durable for two years. it is an exceptional feature of ZigBee [6].  Low cost: Cost of ZigBee device, cost of its installation and cost of maintenance is low to the users [3].