Software-Defined Networking for Smart Grids (SDN-SG): A Review

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@article{1724798,
      author = {Faheem Ahmad Qureshi},
      title = {Software-Defined Networking for Smart Grids (SDN-SG): A Review},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2026},
      volume = {10},
      number = {5},
      pages = {1898-1926},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1724798.pdf},
      abstract = {Smart Grid (SG) provides a highly diverse and complex service environment by incorporating the traditional physical infrastructure for electrical power distribution into communication systems with SG applications. All these services need to be managed simultaneously within this complex environment. Software defined networking (SDN) has the potential to meet such diverse requirements by decoupling the network control from packet forwarding along with the programmable management over these services. In this critical narrative review, we evaluate and assess existing accessible literature relevant to SG communication protocols, controller architecture, resource allocation, failure recovery, interoperability, and evaluation techniques. We differentiate the specific evidence of direct SG usage from general network research and distinguish design and implementation proposals from simulation, emulation, and experimental results. The synthesis supports programmable routing, traffic differentiation, and communication recovery under specified conditions; it does not establish universal reductions in latency or cost, or universal improvements in electrical reliability. Benefits depend on workload, baseline, controller placement, forwarding resources, state coordination, and application requirements. The study establishes an application-oriented taxonomy and a measurement-to-outcome framework to connect network behavior to application and electrical outcomes. Related literature suggests packet level improvements cannot provide evidence of improved operation of SG. Therefore, priorities need to be established including deadline aware orchestration, coordinated communication/computing resources, application aware slicing, reproducible benchmarks, and staged migration. Limitations exist due to selective data collection/incomplete full-text availability/heterogeneous evaluation frameworks limiting our ability to perform pooled performance comparisons. Therefore, SDN-SG should be viewed as a coupled power – communication system rather than as inherently better networking technology.},
      keywords = {smart grid (SG), software-defined networking, communication architecture, IEC 61850, traffic engineering, controller placement, SDN-SG, distributed energy resources},
      month = {November},
  }