Implementing the Internet of Things for Renewable Energy

Abstract

The electric power industry is currently undergoing fundamental changes not only driven by the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies ( ICT ) into the grid, transforming it into a Smart Grid ( SG ), but also due to the incorporation of renewable electricity sources into customer supply, in conjunction with the rapidly decreasing costs of new technologies for electricity generation, storage, and consumption. These evolutions are happening in parallel with the deployment of the Energy Internet of Things ( EIoT ), whose aim is to tie all of these elements together and to provide maximum visibility, monitoring, control, and business proactivity. This chapter describes a number of key developments that are required to pollinate the full deployment of a dynamic SG , managed under EIoT mechanisms. These developments include the following four critical facets: (i) the reliable deployment of effective distributed energy resources ( DER s); (ii) the deployment of the sensing, transmission, and analysis elements that comprise the EIoT ; (iii) the establishment and deployment of EIoT standards to facilitate interworking and multivendor product availability; and (iv) the development and deployment of the essential mechanisms for security that will need to ensure safe and reliable grid operations.