A Survey on Smart Grid Potential Applications and Communication Requirements

Technological advancements in the field of renewable energy systems (RES) are driving a wide and multidisciplinary interest toward the future electrical distribution networks. In order to fully exploit the available energy, electrical grids have to increase their sophistication, becoming smart grids (SGs). There are a variety of SGs definitions, which can be basically summarized as ‘‘intelligent’’ electricity networks, integrating a large number of conventional and unconventional power sources, often based on renewable energies and ‘‘active’’ users, fully coordinated among them by sophisticated management systems. Many research and development issues of interest should be addressed in SGs, involving customers, utilities, energy providers, telecommunication companies, component and system producers, and financial organizations. In this context, significant enhancements can be accomplished by using advanced distributed and coordinated computational intelligence systems. These systems are, in fact, able to support full integration of RES, active participation of electricity customers in grid operations, dynamic optimization of grid operation, improved reliability, high power quality, high levels of grid security and efficiency. Advanced computational intelligence methods that can be applied to solve challenging problems, contributing to a full realization of SGs include, among others, fuzzy logic and bio-inspired intelligence paradigms, such as neural networks, genetic algorithms, swarm intelligence, ant colonies and more. In this context, it is a pleasure for us to introduce this Special Issue on ‘‘Advanced Computational Intelligence Systems for Smart Grids Planning and Management’’, including eight papers which have the aim of bringing some of the most recent and interesting concepts in this area by the worldwide research community and presenting some of the latest advancements and developments in the field of advanced computational intelligence systems dedicated to the SGs. Di Fazio et al. describe recent management systems based on automatic controls and advanced information and communications technologies (ICTs) required for the realization of active networks and SGs. The paper evidences that in the development of smart distribution grids, a multidisciplinary approach is necessary. The development of new communication systems and their interfacing with the power system elements and of distribution management systems (DMSs) and energy management systems (EMSs), able to manage in a smart way the distributed system for energy production, consumption and storage, is in fact, necessary. Communication technology is seen as an essential enabling component of future SGs. In particular, smart meters, protection and control systems and two-way communicating devices represent the major components of the overall SG architecture. The paper by G. Mokryani entitled ‘‘Optimal allocation of wind turbines in microgrids by using genetic algorithm’’ proposes a novel method for optimally allocating WTs in microgrids. The method combines the Genetic Algorithms (GA) and optimal power flow (OPF) to jointly minimize the total active power losses and maximize social welfare (SW) over a year. The GA is used to choose the optimal size while the OPF is used to determine the optimal number C. Cecati Department of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy e-mail: carlo.cecati@univaq.it

Message-oriented middleware for smart grids

Development of “Smart grid” present one of global priority with numerous of benefits, which has to be supported and promote by leading industries and governments institutions. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector has to play important role because of development of modern telecommunication. This paper outlines and initially describes smart grid, smart grid architectures and smart grid management, and the crucial role of ICT in smart grid. This paper explain grid optimization, different concept of renewable energy sources and energy storage system used in smart grid, and present telecom hybrid power system as complex element of smart grid.

Smart Grids (SGs) aim to improve the aging power system grid into a modernized grid with the utilization of the advanced communication technologies in the industry. The incorporation of communications technology in power systems enables two-way flow of electricity and information within the grid system. SGs emerge as the next generation technology in power systems, as a result of the increasing demand of upgrading the conventional grid into the more modernized grid, with the aim of resolving some of the major crisis such as the environmental and energy crisis posed by the existing grid. In order, to deploy this intelligent grid, a sustainable, energy efficient, flexible, scalable, and secure communication infrastructure need to be designed and implemented to address these issues. There are several surveys and studies on the Information and communication technologies (ICT) architectures to develop a suitable protocol of applying the proposed advanced and up-to-date communication and networking technologies into the power system, to enable the intelligence features of the grid system. This paper reviews the works on communications technologies on SGs, with the objective of addressing the issues related to ICT infrastructure, and the recent communication technologies with their corresponding communication requirements.

Smart and super grid visions have attracted electrical engineers worldwide. Smart grid offers innumerable advantages over conservative electric grid due to widespread integration of information and communication technologies (ICT). Information technology (IT) stimulates conscious in dumb electric grid hardware to think at its own how to operate economically in varying load conditions conducting real-time state estimation. Smart grid promises to offer bidirectional power flow capability and self-healing ability against faults. Advance metering infrastructures (AMI) help utilities track down power thefts supplying consumer home automation facilities. Smart grid helps stiff utilities to reduce operational losses and generation deficient utilities to implement live load shedding instead of revolving blackouts to help customers keeping their lights on during virtual load shedding. Smart grid promises package is subject to its complete implementation by the end of long road ahead. Communication capacity and speed limitations, cyber security risks, faults and traffic congestions have to be considered prior to rollout. This paper describes a live load shedding scheme for existing electric grids on 11kV feeders using smart grid option and evaluates technical, economic, societal and bio-effects challenges that smart grid vision might face ahead.

Current electricity grids are developing towards so called “Smart Grids”. Within these Smart Grids information and communication technology (ICT) will play a role in new categories of communication, measurement and control equipment in the electricity grid. Furthermore, it will play a role in the communication between the main actors of a Smart Grid (Market players, Grid Operators and Consumers) and inside the home of the consumer. For ICT architects it is difficult to make the appropriate architectural design choices as different architecture variants are possible and their design space has not been structured. In order to help ICT architects we have structured the design space of the ICT architecture for the Smart Grid and we briefly show how the structured design space can be used in concrete Smart Grid projects. In this paper, first an overview will be given of current views on Smart Grids. Then, the applied research strategy will be explained and the resulting ICT architecture variants for the Smart Grid are presented. The design space is structured based on market orientedness, grid orientedness and the level of distributedness of these architecture variants. Finally, the ICT architecture variants are positioned in the 3-dimensional design space and an overview is given of how the design space could be used in concrete Smart Grid projects.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are major drivers of social and economic change. They are also one of the key Thematic Objectives (TOs) in the European Structural and Investment Fund (ESIF). The aim of these funds is to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion within the European Union. ICTs not only constitute an important sector themselves, but are also an important enabler of other sectors. This is why, analysis of ESIF data on planned ICT investments show EUR 12.2 billion encoded in the dedicated TO, but when ICT categories in other TOs are included, this amount almost doubles, to EUR 21.4 billion.\nFinding out more about the ICT investment plans of EU Member States and regions is not always a straightforward process. The available data for ESIF are structured in TOs and Categories of Intervention (CoIs); however, ICT investment often funds activities beyond the dedicated TOs and CoIs. To obtain a better picture of planned ICT investments, the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT) and the JRC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS) have developed an online tool to display planned ICT investment data on a regional basis. This tool will help EC officials, national and regional policymakers working on ICT issues, and beneficiaries of ESIF, to understand what kind of ICT activities are being planned in Europe.\nThe ICT monitoring tool can be searched using a number of predefined filters, or searches of TOs and CoIs can be customised. The tool also contains a database of keywords built up by a semantic search for keywords in Operational Programmes (OPs). This database allows the user to identify OPs that mention a number of ICT activities more frequently than others, and to identify if a specific topic is mentioned in a region at all. The data set included in the tool is based on an in-depth study of individual OPs, as well as on aggregated data sets.\nWhen studying the available data, we found that Thematic Objective 2 (TO2) does not account for all planned ESIF investments in ICT. Using a broader set of CoIs, planned spending on ICT almost doubled, from 3.8 % to around 6.6 % of the combined total of European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the European Social Fund (ESF), Cohesion Funds (CF) and European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). However, it is likely that even this method fails to capture all planned investments, as respondents to our study indicated that substantial investments in ICT will be allocated to other categories, which would increase ESIF investments in ICT to EUR 35.5 billion. However, this estimate is not currently included in the tool, as the methods of estimating investments are not judged to be adequate. This range of different amounts of investment reflects the dual nature of ICT as an important sector and activity in itself, as well as an enabling technology in other public and private activities.\nTaking the moderate estimates, the EU Member States that plan by far the largest investments in ICT in absolute terms are Poland, Italy and Spain; the regions with the largest planned investments are Campania (IT), Sicilia (IT), Andalucía (ES), Slaskie (PL) and Puglia (IT). For example, the region of Campania plans to invest more ESIF in ICT than the whole of Germany. The greatest investments will be in broadband and ICT infrastructures (EUR 6.9 billion), e-Inclusion and digital skills (EUR 3.9 billion), e-Government (EUR 3.4 billion), and smart cities and smart grids (EUR 3.1 billion).\nTo get a more in-depth view of future plans, we carried out a keyword search of ESIF data. Among the most frequently mentioned keywords are ICT innovation, e-Inclusion, broadband and digital content. This is partly because these keywords are broad and all-encompassing, but the findings also reflect the ambition of many regions to invest in ICT-based innovation activities. Quite substantial ICT investments will go to ICT-based innovation and digital content, but this will be listed under CoIs related to support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and research and innovation, rather than the core CoIs for planned ICT investments.

EV fast charging stations and energy storage technologies: A real implementation in the smart micro grid paradigm

Smart Grid has been characterized as the next generation power grid in which modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will improve control, reliability and safety. Although the adoption of generic off-the-shelf ICT in Smart Grid provisions indisputable advantages and benefits, it raises several issues concerning the reliability and security of communications - the core infrastructure of Smart Grid. Cloud computing has developed and evolved over the past years becoming a real choice for Smart Grids infrastructure because of the availability, scalability, performance and interoperability that it offers. In this paper we present a survey of the existing cloud-based software platforms for implementing secure Smart Grids. Security issues like authentication and authorization of users, data encryption, availability, attacker impact, detection and trust management have received significant attention in previous work. Nevertheless, as shown in this paper, their integration and adaptation to emerging fields such as Smart Grid is still in an embryonic state. As such, we report recent advancements and software platforms specifically for Smart Grid and we outline several issues as well as suggestions for designing security-aware platforms for Smart Grid.

Smart grid communication and information technologies in the perspective of Industry 4.0: Opportunities and challenges

This chapter addresses the application of machine learning algorithms to detect attacks against smart grids. Smart grids are the result of a long process of transformation that power systems have been through, relying on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to improve their monitoring and control. Although an objective of this convergence of power systems and ICT is to increase their reliability, the dependency on information technology has brought new cybersecurity vulnerabilities to this scenario. Therefore, developing new cybersecurity measures for smart grids is a key factor in their success. One of these measures is attack detection, which allows the timely mitigation of attacks with the aim of limiting possible damages to the targets. As machine learning algorithms have been widely applied as powerful tools to support the design of cybersecurity solutions in multiple areas, they also have huge potential for addressing the new challenges that smart grids pose. With this as the foundational perspective, this study starts by presenting an overview of smart grids, followed by possible attacks. After this discussion, we examine the background concepts for attack detection and machine learning. Then, we discuss the existing solutions, showing in detail how they address the particularities of smart grids and their attack types using machine learning algorithms. This is supplemented by a discussion of the open issues in the use of machine learning for smart grid attack detection, followed by some future research directions.

Smart grid software interconnects multiple Engineering disciplines (power systems, communication, software and hardware technology, instrumentation, big data, etc.). The software architecture is an evolving concept in smart grid systems, in which system architecture development is a challenging process. The architecture has to realize the complex legacy power grid systems and cope with current Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The distributed generation in a smart grid environment expects the software architecture to be distributed and to enable local control. Smart grid architecture should also be modular, flexible, and adaptable to technology upgrades. In this paper, the authors have made a comprehensive review of architectures for smart grids. An in depth analysis of layered and agent-based architectures based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conceptual model is presented. Also presented is a set of smart grid Reference Architectures dealing with cross domain technology.

Perception of Ultimate Utilization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as an Impetus in Enhancing Employee Performance in a Few Selected Municipalities in the Eastern Cape of South Africa

The Smart Grid integrates the traditional electrical power grid with information and communication technologies (ICT). Such integration empowers the electrical utilities providers and consumers, improves the efficiency and the availability of the power system while constantly monitoring, controlling and managing the demands of customers. Through smart grid, the power system becomes smart by communicating, sensing, control and applying intelligence. The Smart Grid is also kept the environment free from pollution; minimize the cost, effective operations, against all types of hazards and danger. Smart Grid is a huge complex network composed of millions of devices and entities connected with each other through wireless communications techniques including Home Area Networks (HANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). Such a massive network comes with many security concerns and vulnerabilities. In this paper, we highlight the complexity of the smart grid network and discuss the comparison between heterogeneous network. We discuss then the challenges that exist in securing the smart power grid and the countermeasures and solutions applied for information and communication networks to secure Smart Power Grid. We conclude by over viewing the key functions and benefits of using the Smart Gird technology and how this impacts on human livelihood, economy and the environment.

A Smart Grid (SG) is a modern electricity supply system. It uses information and communication technology (ICT) to run, monitor and control data between the generation source and the end user. It comprises a set of technologies that uses sensing, embedded processing and digital communications to intelligently control and monitor an electricity grid with improved reliability, security, and efficiency. SGs are classified as Critical Infrastructures. In the recent past, there have been cyber-attacks on SGs causing substantial damage and loss of services. A recent cyber-attack on Ukraine's SG caused over 2.3 million homes to be without power for around six hours. Apart from the loss of services, some portions of the SG are yet to be operational, due to the damage caused. SGs also face security challenges such as confidentiality, availability, fault tolerance, privacy, and other security issues. Communication and networking technologies integrated into the SG require new and existing security vulnerabilities to be thoroughly investigated. Key management is one of the most important security requirements to achieve data confidentiality and integrity in a SG system. It is not practical to design a single key management scheme/framework for all systems, actors and segments in the smart grid, since the security requirements of various sub-systems in the SG vary. We address two specific sub-systems categorised by the network connectivity layer – the Home Area Network (HAN) and the Neighbourhood Area Network (NAN). Currently, several security schemes and key management solutions for SGs have been proposed. However, these solutions lack better security for preventing common cyber-attacks such as node capture attack, replay attack and Sybil attack. We propose a cryptographic key management scheme that takes into account the differences in the HAN and NAN segments of the SG with respect to topology, authentication and forwarding of data. The scheme complies with the overall performance requirements of the smart grid. The proposed scheme uses group key management and group authentication in order to address end-to-end security for the HAN and NAN scenarios in a smart grid, which fulfils data confidentiality, integrity and scalability requirements. The security scheme is implemented in a multi-hop sensor network using TelosB motes and ZigBee OPNET simulation model. In addition, replay attack, Sybil attack and node capture attack scenarios have been implemented and evaluated in a NAN scenario. Evaluation results show that the scheme is resilient against node capture attacks and replay attacks. Smart Meters in a NAN are able to authenticate themselves in a group rather than authenticating one at a time. This significant improvement over existing schemes is discussed with comparisons with other security schemes.