Abstract—The term “smart grid” refers to the power system that integrates new digital measurements, new digital control devices, and communication technology. The first step toward this goal is to establish a two-way communication infrastructure for the purpose of data delivery among data resources, system actuators and control centers. Phasor measurement unit (PMU) is a kind of new data resources that are widely used in power systems, recently. On the other hand, state estimation (SE) is basis application in control centers and it is known as kernel of other smartgrid applications. This study aims to plan a communication infrastructure that creates communication routes from PMUs of a SE to the control center in a power network. To do this, a new concept is introduced to power system communication called dependent communication system (DCS). A DCS has been made by independent transmission media (e.g. optical power grand wire), which is typically attached to the power systems. In this paper, OPGW based DCS designing problem is formulated as an optimization problem. This optimization problem is solved by genetic algorithm. It will be shown that DCS planning is an effective and flexible approach for designing communication infrastructures of smart grids. The results confirm that almost 25 percent of lengths of transmission lines should be covered by OPGW in order to create communication routes from PMUs to the control center. Hence, it is proved that the price of high speed, reliable and secure communication infrastructure of a smartgrid is considerable in comparison with the price of data resources e.g. PMUs.

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