So-called Smart Grid Research Articles

Designing a Comprehensive and Flexible Architecture to Improve Energy Efficiency and Decision-Making in Managing Energy Consumption and Production in Panama

In recent years, the integration of new elements to the electric grid, such as electric vehicles and renewable energies, requires the evolution of the electric grid as we know it, making it necessary to optimize the processes of production, distribution, and storage of energy. This situation gives rise to introducing the so-called Smart Grids (SG), which would allow a balance between energy supply and demand, thus enabling a system in which the consumer will also become a producer of its surplus energy. Under this scenario, this work proposes an architecture whose technological components, such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and mobile applications, allow users to address the problem of consumption and production of electricity. In the experiments conducted, results were obtained from the components that support the functionality of the proposed platform.

A Novel SW Tool for the Evaluation of Expected Benefits of V2H Charging Devices Utilization in V2B Building Contexts

Energy systems need a complete decarbonization within the next 20–30 years, calling for the introduction of CO2-free renewable energy sources (RES). All final uses must face this challenge, now finally including the transportation sector which should mostly be electrified. This option could constitute both a challenge and an opportunity for the electric grid. In fact, connection to the grid of all electric vehicles (EVs) together with their electricity storage systems (ESSs) could reduce issues due to the nonprogrammable use of RES in electricity production; to this aim, sufficiently smart bi-directional vehicle-to-grid technologies (V2G) have to be designed and widely installed. Parallelly, electric grid capabilities must become fully bidirectional in all nodes, both physically and in terms of ICT capabilities (so-called smart grid paradigm). In the meanwhile, some of those V2G technologies may already be locally implemented in individual home contexts. Following previous research activity about the identification of potential users of the most promising V2H technologies and on the evaluation of their expected benefits in terms of local renewable energy auto-consumption and/or local consumption auto-feeding performance, the author aims his attention to the numerical evaluation of the further benefits obtainable through the combined utilization of a number of V2H technologies all acting on the same “building” energy node; this approach is normally referred to in the literature as a vehicle-to-building (V2B) application. The SW tool which was developed to this aim is fully physically consistent, scalable, modular, open-source, and user-friendly, and it can be distributed under request to other research groups. In the simulations performed, V2H devices all used the same controlling approach, but offered their services to a “building” energy community, defined by the instantaneous sum of the energy behaviors of all the individual users. The simulation results show that building environments make it possible to intersect energy fluxes far beyond single user expectation, leading to very energy grid performances. In particular, renewable energy auto-consumption ratios become higher than 50%, and almost all local electric final uses may be fed through grid-connected vehicular ESSs (100% home auto-feeding ratio). This limits building–grid interactions to much more predictable residual ESS charging phases, as well as the sale of PV panel overproduction. The performance obtainable through the simulated V2B approach proved to be much higher than that obtainable through the same V2H technologies acting on single individual grids (which were estimated in a previous study by the same research group), ranging from 25% to 69% in terms of PV auto-consumption ratios (with higher values only obtainable for “nocturnal workers”, living in their home mostly during the daytime); moreover, a poor performance was recorded in terms of local consumption auto-feeding, ranging from 27% to 81% (with higher values only obtainable for those users mostly inhabiting their home during the night-time).

Coupling OMNeT++ and Mosaik for Integrated Co-Simulation of ICT-Reliant Smart Grids

The increasing integration of renewable energy resources requires so-called smart grid services for monitoring, control and automation tasks. Simulation environments are vital for evaluating and developing innovative solutions and algorithms. Especially in smart energy systems, we face a variety of heterogeneous simulators representing, e.g., power grids, analysis or control components and markets. The co-simulation framework mosaik can be used to orchestrate the data exchange and time synchronization between individual simulators. So far, the underlying communication infrastructure has often been assumed to be optimal and therefore, the influence of e.g., communication delays has been neglected. This paper presents the first results of the project cosima, which aims at connecting the communication simulator OMNeT++ to the co-simulation framework mosaik to analyze the resilience and robustness of smart grid services, e.g., multi-agent-based services with respect to adaptivity, scalability, extensibility and usability. This facilitates simulations with realistic communication technologies (such as 5G) and the analysis of dynamic communication characteristics by simulating multiple messages. We show the functionality and benefits of cosima in experiments with 50 agents.

Energy Not Exchanged: A Metric to Quantify Energy Resilience in Smart Grids

In high-impact, low-probability (HILP) events, resilience is defined as the ability of a system to return to a normal operating state after a failure. The generalization of information technologies and distributed renewable production is transforming the power grid into the so-called smart grid, thus allowing for new mitigation methods to address failures. After illustrating the limits of currently existing metrics, this paper proposes a method to quantify the resilience of smart grids during physical line faults while identifying the most impactful failures. For this purpose, a new resilience metric is defined in order to quantify Energy Not Exchanged (ENE). The calculation of this metric in a power grid via the optimal power flow (OPF) serves, therefore, to quantify the extreme resilience of the grid. In addition, various mitigation strategies, which enable maintaining a high level of resilience, despite the presence of failure, are simulated and then compared to one another (tie switch and microgrid formation).

Agile digitalization evolution in the energy sector taking into account innovative and disruptive technologies

The development of technology and science is decisive in the development of social welfare. We are experiencing the fourth revolution in technological development –after the invention of the steam engine; electricity and process automation; and then computer / IT technology – characterized by an interconnected information network. This revolution will affect all related industries, including the energy sector. New solutions, sensors, devices are available, but the main issue is the use of these devices. So-called smart grid technologies have many advantages, but they also present challenges, whether technologically, economically or sociologically and socially [1]. The answers to these challenges are often not traditional, but creative solutions can mean a breakthrough, changing and accelerating the current progress trends. Such solutions and methods can change and advance all segments and areas, from energy to medicine to the beauty industry. The digital transformation and its implications will significantly change the support for the basic functions of energy distribution. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to solve any task or complete a simple work phase without a computer or IT tool, location data, work schedule description, parameters, and so on. Long-term operation and design, proper architecture and design framework are crucial for efficient operation. Enterprise architecture management within large companies usually involves a very complex range of activities [2]: business, IT and organizational information infrastructure. The role of enterprise architecture is becoming increasingly important for developing and growing companies [3]. In our article, we show how recent decades have helped improve the efficiency of network management and how digitalization is becoming an indispensable player in a sustainable, renewablebased vision.

Hybrid PLC and LoRaWAN Smart Metering Networks: Modeling and Optimization

The evolution toward the so-called smart grid (SG) needs to be supported by robust and cost-efficient advanced metering infrastructure. This article focuses on technology selection and gateway placement in hybrid SGs, wherein each smart meter (SM) is equipped with either a power line communication or a long-range wide area network protocol node to connect to its serving gateway. The latter is endowed with both technologies. In particular, we introduce an analytical framework to characterize the performance–cost tradeoffs using a multicriteria optimization approach. For each technology, a set of performance objective functions (i.e., sum-rate and max–min) has been derived based on the ergodic capacity, whereas the cost is represented by SG hardware expenses. Then, the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II has been exploited using an appropriate chromosome structure to provide the suitable access technology for each SM along with the optimal number and the placement of the serving GWs. Extensive numerical simulations have shown that hybrid solutions provide a good interplay between performance and investment costs, spurring the need to redefine the conventional SG designs traditionally operating in single communication technologies.

Application of the TEAC software for analysis of Energy Flexible Building Clusters – a case study

Nowadays, natural environment protection and sustainable development became common and necessary issues for all the economic sectors. It is extremely important to focus on all the efforts resulting in the most efficient and sustainable power sources and electric power grid. Typically, the residential districts are connected by electric grids, which with an application of the appropriate technologies might be considered as so-called smart-grids. In the smart-grid neighbourhoods, houses are the consumers, energy supply is performed by the local or/and national power plants, while energy distribution is performed using some monitoring and management systems. Such a residential area can be considered as a Building Cluster, the novel paradigm in the energy and environmental analysis of the built environments. In this article, the exemplary single-family houses neighbourhood is examined, following the Building Cluster paradigm. The analysed area is located in Lodz (Poland), consisting of 202 buildings. The study is performed by means of the home-developed software named TEAC (Tool for Energy Efficiency Analyses of an Energy Cluster). The analysis is focused on the energy, economic and environmental issues of the considered Building Cluster.

Security Aspects in Smart Meters: Analysis and Prevention.

Smart meters are of the basic elements in the so-called Smart Grid. These devices, connected to the Internet, keep bidirectional communication with other devices in the Smart Grid structure to allow remote readings and maintenance. As any other device connected to a network, smart meters become vulnerable to attacks with different purposes, like stealing data or altering readings. Nowadays, it is becoming more and more popular to buy and plug-and-play smart meters, additionally to those installed by the energy providers, to directly monitor the energy consumption at home. This option inherently entails security risks that are under the responsibility of householders. In this paper, we focus on an open solution based on Smartpi 2.0 devices with two purposes. On the one hand, we propose a network configuration and different data flows to exchange data (energy readings) in the home. These flows are designed to support collaborative among the devices in order to prevent external attacks and attempts of corrupting the data. On the other hand, we check the vulnerability by performing two kind of attacks (denial of service and stealing and changing data by using a malware). We conclude that, as expected, these devices are vulnerable to these attacks, but we provide mechanisms to detect both of them and to solve, by applying cooperation techniques.

A BI-LEVEL MULTI-OBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION MODEL FOR THE PLANNING, DESIGN AND OPERATION OF SMART GRID PROJECTS. CASE STUDY: AN ISLANDED MICROGRID

The planning and operation of Smart Grid projects is an issue that has increased in complexity and requires further analysis. This is due to the increase of distributed generation sources, generation with renewable sources, storage systems, and a disarticulation of information between the different levels in the sector and the stakeholders. All these factors lead to the inherent difficulty of defining appropriate models that help decision making. This paper proposes a bi-level optimization model to solve the problem of planning and operation of microgrid projects, as these can be considered as an ideal small-scale prototype of the so-called Smart Grids. In this bi-level scheme, the problem of planning or design of the microgrid is formulated at the upper level, while the problem of power dispatch or operation of the units is described at the lower level. The proposed multilevel multi-objective decision model is inspired by the System of System (SoS) concept in order to integrate qualitative and quantitative decision-making tools. Likewise, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used for the detailed and continuous monitoring of any project. The presented model is applied using the information of an electrically isolated microgrid on the Colombian Pacific coast.Keywords: Smart Grids, Bi-level optimization, Decision Making, Key Performance Indicators, QFD, Energy planning and management.JEL Classifications: C61, D70, L94, Q42.DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.9343

Trust-less electricity consumption optimization in local energy communities

Optimizing energy consumption in local energy communities is one of the key contributions to the so-called smart grid. Such communities are equipped with rooftop photovoltaic power plants or other forms of small power plants for local energy production. In addition, a number of appliances allow for shiftable energy consumption, e.g., heat pumps or electric vehicle charging stations. The ability to shift is, however, dependent on customer preferences. In this paper, we present a trust-less approach for optimizing the electricity consumption in a local energy community given forecasts of energy production and customer demands, along with constraints for shiftable loads. In larger communities, appointing a single party for managing load curtailment requires a high level of trust. In the proposed trust-less approach, all parties can independently propose optimal solutions for this optimization problem and then globally agree one one solution that meets the defined requirements to the greatest extent.

Energy infrastructure renovation investment as economic growth driver

The article deals with the prospects of energy infrastructure projects investment within current condition of the global economic growth driven by transition economies. Economic growth heavily relies on energy consumption, so under the limits of the sustainable development paradigm, economic development must take into account the consequences of environmental pollution in order to preserve the ecological system. Balancing between economic growth and preservation of ecology is one of the key global problems and technological development, the step of renewable energy projects partially solves this problem, but the question arises about the infrastructure for the new sources of energy generation. New sources require new energy transmission grids and intelligent systems of coordination and control – the so-called smart grid.
 Developed countries are gradually shifting to new energy management systems, but transition economies face the problem of access to capital and scarcity of resources to carry out large-scale projects.
 The paper analyzes technological readiness and economic reason of transition to new generation energy networks for transition economies. The financial expediency of infrastructure projects is a particular problem for the renovation of infrastructure.
 Having considered the international experience and evaluating the factors of productivity growth based on the restored infrastructure, it was concluded that the renovation of energy networks is a sound and reliable driver of economic growth and a prerequisite for ensuring long-term growth of the national economy.

An integrated pan-European research infrastructure for validating smart grid systems

A driving force for the realization of a sustainable energy supply in Europe is the integration of distributed, renewable energy resources. Due to their dynamic and stochastic generation behaviour, utilities and network operators are confronted with a more complex operation of the underlying distribution grids. Additionally, due to the higher flexibility on the consumer side through partly controllable loads, ongoing changes of regulatory rules, technology developments, and the liberalization of energy markets, the system’s operation needs adaptation. Sophisticated design approaches together with proper operational concepts and intelligent automation provide the basis to turn the existing power system into an intelligent entity, a so-called smart grid. While reaping the benefits that come along with those intelligent behaviours, it is expected that the system-level testing will play a significantly larger role in the development of future solutions and technologies. Proper validation approaches, concepts, and corresponding tools are partly missing until now. This paper addresses these issues by discussing the progress in the integrated Pan-European research infrastructure project ERIGrid where proper validation methods and tools are currently being developed for validating smart grid systems and solutions.

Privacy-Aware Smart Metering: Progress and Challenges

The next-generation energy network, the so-called smart grid (SG), promises a tremendous increase in efficiency, safety and flexibility of managing the electricity grid as compared to the legacy energy network. This is needed today more than ever, as the global energy consumption is growing at an unprecedented rate, and renewable energy sources have to be seamlessly integrated into the grid to assure a sustainable human development. Smart meters (SMs) are among the crucial enablers of the SG concept; they supply accurate high-frequency information about users' household energy consumption to a utility provider, which is essential for time of use pricing, rapid fault detection, energy theft prevention, while also providing consumers with more flexibility and control over their consumption. However, highly accurate and granular SM data also poses a threat to consumer privacy as non-intrusive load monitoring techniques enable a malicious attacker to infer many details of a user's private life. This article focuses on privacy-enhancing energy management techniques that provide accurate energy consumption information to the grid operator, without sacrificing consumer privacy. In particular, we focus on techniques that shape and modify the actual user energy consumption by means of physical resources, such as rechargeable batteries, renewable energy sources or demand shaping. A rigorous mathematical analysis of privacy is presented under various physical constraints on the available physical resources. Finally, open questions and challenges that need to be addressed to pave the way to the effective protection of users' privacy in future SGs are presented.

Survey on Complex Optimization and Simulation for the New Power Systems Paradigm

This survey provides a comprehensive analysis on recent research related to optimization and simulation in the new paradigm of power systems, which embraces the so-called smart grid. We start by providing an overview of the recent research related to smart grid optimization. From the variety of challenges that arise in a smart grid context, we analyze with a significance importance the energy resource management problem since it is seen as one of the most complex and challenging in recent research. The survey also provides a discussion on the application of computational intelligence, with a strong emphasis on evolutionary computation techniques, to solve complex problems where traditional approaches usually fail. The last part of this survey is devoted to research on large-scale simulation towards applications in electricity markets and smart grids. The survey concludes that the study of the integration of distributed renewable generation, demand response, electric vehicles, or even aggregators in the electricity market is still very poor. Besides, adequate models and tools to address uncertainty in energy scheduling solutions are crucial to deal with new resources such as electric vehicles or renewable generation. Computational intelligence can provide a significant advantage over traditional tools to address these complex problems. In addition, supercomputers or parallelism opens a window to refine the application of these new techniques. However, such technologies and approaches still need to mature to be the preferred choice in the power systems field. In summary, this survey provides a full perspective on the evolution and complexity of power systems as well as advanced computational tools, such as computational intelligence and simulation, while motivating new research avenues to cover gaps that need to be addressed in the coming years.

Integrating Renewable Energy Resources Into the Smart Grid: Recent Developments in Information and Communication Technologies

Rising energy costs, losses in the present-day electricity grid, risks from nuclear power generation, and global environmental changes are motivating a transformation of the conventional ways of generating electricity. Globally, there is a desire to rely more on renewable energy resources (RERs) for electricity generation. RERs reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may have economic benefits, e.g., through applying demand side management with dynamic pricing so as to shift loads from fossil fuel-based generators to RERs. The electricity grid is presently evolving toward an intelligent grid, the so-called smart grid (SG). One of the major goals of the future SG is to move toward 100% electricity generation from RERs, i.e., toward a 100% renewable grid. However, the disparate, intermittent, and typically widely geographically distributed nature of RERs complicates the integration of RERs into the SG. Moreover, individual RERs have generally lower capacity than conventional fossil fuel-based plants, and these RERs are based on a wide spectrum of different technologies. In this article, we give an overview of recent efforts that aim to integrate RERs into the SG. We outline the integration of RERs into the SG along with their supporting communication networks. We also discuss ongoing projects that seek to integrate RERs into the SG around the globe. Finally, we outline future research directions on integrating RERs into the SG.

Grid integration of solar PV for multi-apartment buildings

Several studies show that large installations of rooftop solar PV in residential low voltage grids, typically with many single family dwellings, may cause overvoltage issues during mid-day when local consumption is low and solar PV electricity generation high. Different so-called smart grid technologies, which often requires additional control, communication and monitoring equipment have been suggested to alleviate these and related problems. In this paper, solar PV integration is studied in the context of multi-apartment buildings where the rooftop potential is significant. To this end, the medium voltage grids of two multi-apartment areas, Barnstenen and Alabastern in Vaxjo, Sweden are used as study cases. For these areas, it is found that active smart grid control or the introduction of new controllable load is not required. This finding applies to cases with very large solar PV installations corresponding to full coverage of the available rooftops and an annual yield corresponding to about eight times the annual electricity consumption. The conclusion is that multi-apartment residential areas may be ideally suited for large-scale solar PV installations without the need for smart grid infrastructure. These findings are contrary to, but not in disagreement with previous findings for low voltage residential grids.

THE REVIEW OF THE CONDITION OF BRANCH OF TRANSFORMER MANUFACTURE AND TENDENCIES OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE DESIGN OF POWER TRANSFORMERS

Manufacturers and consumers of transformers rather conservatively concern all innovations in transformer manufacture since in power distributive transformers are inherent long term of the operation, essential cost and a purchasing cycle. Progress of perfection of a design of the transformer is substantially defined now by creation new and perfection used conduction, magnetic and insulating materials. Regarding creation new conduction the materials applied by manufacture of mains transformers, it is possible to allocate high-temperature superconducting materials and, accordingly, the HTS transformers created with their application. Pre-production models of HTS transformers with use HTS of a tape of 2nd generation on the basis of superconducting ceramics GdBCO are already made and are tested. Development of manufacturing techniques of the hightension cable has allowed to create a cable with isolation from cross linked polyethylene (XLPE) and to apply it in the field of transformer technologies by working out of the new dryformer. Regarding creation of new magnetic materials the special role is taken away so-called, to the nano-crystal alloy which features have laid down in a basis of creation of new type of amorphous core transformers. Now in the world works on working out of tapes from the amorphous alloys possessing improved magnetic properties and cheapness, in particular Fe(Co)SiBPCCu and 2605SA1 are conducted. As tendencies in change of type of the core and its design are observed. More and more wide application at manufacturing of power three-phase transformers small and a mean power is found by the strip-wound cores which design is executed on technology UNICORE. As interest to a design of cores of the electrotechnical steels executed from different types and received the name “Sandwich” is shown. Regarding perfection of used insulations materials, it is possible to note application of electrotechnical gas (SF6) in transformers in circuit-breaker oil replacements. Such transformers have received the name gas-insulated transformers, and their obvious advantage are ecological compatibility and fire safety. Now it is much spoken about creation of so-called Smart Grid, and their transition in the future to the most effective systems of a highest level called now Microgrid. Certain demands are made to the specified electric systems: maintenance optimum capacity factor and high electrical power factor. The resulted requirements, at present, can be realised only new semiconductor transformers, such as the “Sen” transformer.

Harmonization of Standards in the Field of Communication Networks and Systems for Automation of Electric Power Enterprises. Part 1. Information Models and Modeling Methods

The development of the Ukrainian electricity sector in terms of energy independence and energy saving is directly related to the introduction of so-called Smart Grid technologies — the construction of intelligent electrical networks. That, in turn, requires their automation, and first of all — electric substations, and, consequently, the introduction of a number of standards harmonized with international ones. Such standards are: IEC 61850‑1 IEC 61850‑6; IEC 61850-7 ÷ IEC 61850-7-5); IEC 61850-8-1; IEC 61850-9-2; IEC 61850-10.
 Based on the analysis of these standards in the article presented, from the conceptual point of view, the perception in the understanding of the basic concepts of modeling and description methods for information models of stations and substations, the functions of devices used in the automation of substations and communication systems to provide interoperability within substations.

Secure Protocol and IP Core for Configuration of Networking Hardware IPs in the Smart Grid

Nowadays, the incorporation and constant evolution of communication networks in the electricity sector have given rise to the so-called Smart Grid, which is why it is necessary to have devices that are capable of managing new communication protocols, guaranteeing the strict requirements of processing required by the electricity sector. In this context, intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) with network architectures are currently available to meet the communication, real-time processing and interoperability requirements of the Smart Grid. The new generation IEDs include an Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), to support specialized networking switching architectures for the electric sector, as the IEEE 1588-aware High-availability Seamless Redundancy/Parallel Redundancy Protocol (HSR/PRP). Another advantage to using an FPGA is the ability to update or reconfigure the design to support new requirements that are being raised to the standards (IEC 61850). The update of the architecture implemented in the FPGA can be done remotely, but it is necessary to establish a cyber security mechanism since the communication link generates vulnerability in the case the attacker gains physical access to the network. The research presented in this paper proposes a secure protocol and Intellectual Property (IP) core for configuring and monitoring the networking IPs implemented in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The FPGA based implementation proposed overcomes this issue using a light Layer-2 protocol fully implemented on hardware and protected by strong cryptographic algorithms (AES-GCM), defined in the IEC 61850-90-5 standard. The proposed secure protocol and IP core are applicable in any field where remote configuration over Ethernet is required for IP cores in FPGAs. In this paper, the proposal is validated in communications hardware for Smart Grids.

Energy rating of a water pumping station using multivariate analysis

Among water management policies, the preservation and the saving of energy demand in water supply and treatment systems play key roles. When focusing on energy, the customary metric to determine the performance of water supply systems is linked to the definition of component-based energy indicators. This approach is unfit to account for interactions occurring among system elements or between the system and its environment. On the other hand, the development of information technology has led to the availability of increasing large amount of data, typically gathered from distributed sensor networks in so-called smart grids. In this context, data intensive methodologies address the possibility of using complex network modeling approaches, and advocate the issues related to the interpretation and analysis of large amount of data produced by smart sensor networks.In this perspective, the present work aims to use data intensive techniques in the energy analysis of a water management network. The purpose is to provide new metrics for the energy rating of the system and to be able to provide insights into the dynamics of its operations. The study applies neural network as a tool to predict energy demand, when using flowrate and vibration data as predictor variables.