Real-Time Exchange of IEC 61850 Sample Values over 5G for Grid Monitoring and Operation

High-quality real-time data from the grid is essential for data-driven real-time operations. With a geographically widespread grid, there is a lot of interest in using mobile networks for communications to avoid the need to invest in and operate an additional communication network, but the quality and reliability of the mobile network need to be sufficient. In this paper, we investigate configurations of a 5G testbed for transmission of IEC 61850 sample values, in particular with respect to achieving low latency. Considering that different grid use cases have different traffic patterns we show how the performance can vary and the impact of adjusting multiple network parameters. The results demonstrate that the interaction between different mechanisms is complex, but there are important gains to be made from good UE specific parameter configurations.