A Survey of Smart Grid Emerging Use Cases and Relevant 5G and 6G Capabilities and Features

Abstract: The growing complexity of modern energy systems has led to the adoption of Smart Grid (SG) that use advanced communication technologies to facilitate efficient, reliable, secure, and sustainable energy operation and management. Unlike existing surveys that often treat grid and communication domains separately, this work rigorously quantifies service requirements for high-complexity emerging scenarios. It provides a comprehensive overview of SG architecture that integrates digital communication infrastructure with distributed energy resources (DERs), microgrids, energy storage systems, and cybersecurity frameworks. Furthermore, emerging SG use cases such as smart distributed voltage control, real-time fault detection and self-healing, smart and autonomous monitoring, and predictive maintenance are identified, and more importantly, service performance requirements associated with these use cases have been quantified. Additionally, key capabilities and emerging SG enablers of fifth-generation (5G) and sixth-generation (6G) networks are described. These capabilities and enablers include network slicing, edge computing, spectrum management, AI driven optimization, digital twins, and Open-Radio Access Network (O-RAN). Finally, the paper discusses open challenges and future research directions for designing scalable, intelligent, and secure next-generation SG systems.