Smart grid

About: Smart grid is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 37536 publications have been published within this topic receiving 627844 citations. The topic is also known as: intelligent grid.

A Survey on the Edge Computing for the Internet of Things

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) now permeates our daily lives, providing important measurement and collection tools to inform our every decision. Millions of sensors and devices are continuously producing data and exchanging important messages via complex networks supporting machine-to-machine communications and monitoring and controlling critical smart-world infrastructures. As a strategy to mitigate the escalation in resource congestion, edge computing has emerged as a new paradigm to solve IoT and localized computing needs. Compared with the well-known cloud computing, edge computing will migrate data computation or storage to the network “edge,” near the end users. Thus, a number of computation nodes distributed across the network can offload the computational stress away from the centralized data center, and can significantly reduce the latency in message exchange. In addition, the distributed structure can balance network traffic and avoid the traffic peaks in IoT networks, reducing the transmission latency between edge/cloudlet servers and end users, as well as reducing response times for real-time IoT applications in comparison with traditional cloud services. Furthermore, by transferring computation and communication overhead from nodes with limited battery supply to nodes with significant power resources, the system can extend the lifetime of the individual nodes. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive survey, analyzing how edge computing improves the performance of IoT networks. We categorize edge computing into different groups based on architecture, and study their performance by comparing network latency, bandwidth occupation, energy consumption, and overhead. In addition, we consider security issues in edge computing, evaluating the availability, integrity, and the confidentiality of security strategies of each group, and propose a framework for security evaluation of IoT networks with edge computing. Finally, we compare the performance of various IoT applications (smart city, smart grid, smart transportation, and so on) in edge computing and traditional cloud computing architectures.

A Survey on Smart Grid Communication Infrastructures: Motivations, Requirements and Challenges

Abstract: A communication infrastructure is an essential part to the success of the emerging smart grid. A scalable and pervasive communication infrastructure is crucial in both construction and operation of a smart grid. In this paper, we present the background and motivation of communication infrastructures in smart grid systems. We also summarize major requirements that smart grid communications must meet. From the experience of several industrial trials on smart grid with communication infrastructures, we expect that the traditional carbon fuel based power plants can cooperate with emerging distributed renewable energy such as wind, solar, etc, to reduce the carbon fuel consumption and consequent green house gas such as carbon dioxide emission. The consumers can minimize their expense on energy by adjusting their intelligent home appliance operations to avoid the peak hours and utilize the renewable energy instead. We further explore the challenges for a communication infrastructure as the part of a complex smart grid system. Since a smart grid system might have over millions of consumers and devices, the demand of its reliability and security is extremely critical. Through a communication infrastructure, a smart grid can improve power reliability and quality to eliminate electricity blackout. Security is a challenging issue since the on-going smart grid systems facing increasing vulnerabilities as more and more automation, remote monitoring/controlling and supervision entities are interconnected.

Optimal Real-Time Pricing Algorithm Based on Utility Maximization for Smart Grid

Abstract: In this paper, we consider a smart power infrastructure, where several subscribers share a common energy source. Each subscriber is equipped with an energy consumption controller (ECC) unit as part of its smart meter. Each smart meter is connected to not only the power grid but also a communication infrastructure such as a local area network. This allows two-way communication among smart meters. Considering the importance of energy pricing as an essential tool to develop efficient demand side management strategies, we propose a novel real-time pricing algorithm for the future smart grid. We focus on the interactions between the smart meters and the energy provider through the exchange of control messages which contain subscribers' energy consumption and the real-time price information. First, we analytically model the subscribers' preferences and their energy consumption patterns in form of carefully selected utility functions based on concepts from microeconomics. Second, we propose a distributed algorithm which automatically manages the interactions among the ECC units at the smart meters and the energy provider. The algorithm finds the optimal energy consumption levels for each subscriber to maximize the aggregate utility of all subscribers in the system in a fair and efficient fashion. Finally, we show that the energy provider can encourage some desirable consumption patterns among the subscribers by means of the proposed real-time pricing interactions. Simulation results confirm that the proposed distributed algorithm can potentially benefit both subscribers and the energy provider.

DC Microgrids—Part II: A Review of Power Architectures, Applications, and Standardization Issues

Abstract: DC microgrids (MGs) have been gaining a continually increasing interest over the past couple of years both in academia and industry. The advantages of dc distribution when compared to its ac counterpart are well known. The most important ones include higher reliability and efficiency, simpler control and natural interface with renewable energy sources, and electronic loads and energy storage systems. With rapid emergence of these components in modern power systems, the importance of dc in today's society is gradually being brought to a whole new level. A broad class of traditional dc distribution applications, such as traction, telecom, vehicular, and distributed power systems can be classified under dc MG framework and ongoing development, and expansion of the field is largely influenced by concepts used over there. This paper aims first to shed light on the practical design aspects of dc MG technology concerning typical power hardware topologies and their suitability for different emerging smart grid applications. Then, an overview of the state of the art in dc MG protection and grounding is provided. Owing to the fact that there is no zero-current crossing, an arc that appears upon breaking dc current cannot be extinguished naturally, making the protection of dc MGs a challenging problem. In relation with this, a comprehensive overview of protection schemes, which discusses both design of practical protective devices and their integration into overall protection systems, is provided. Closely coupled with protection, conflicting grounding objectives, e.g., minimization of stray current and common-mode voltage, are explained and several practical solutions are presented. Also, standardization efforts for dc systems are addressed. Finally, concluding remarks and important future research directions are pointed out.