10,556 research outputs found
Smart Grid Technologies in Europe: An Overview
The old electricity network infrastructure has proven to be inadequate, with respect to modern challenges such as alternative energy sources, electricity demand and energy saving policies. Moreover, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) seem to have reached an adequate level of reliability and flexibility in order to support a new concept of electricity networkāthe smart grid. In this work, we will analyse the state-of-the-art of smart grids, in their technical, management, security, and optimization aspects. We will also provide a brief overview of the regulatory aspects involved in the development of a smart grid, mainly from the viewpoint of the European Unio
Exploring the future Electric Vehicle market and its impacts with an agent-based spatial integrated framework: A case study of Beijing, China
This paper investigates the potential expansion and impacts of Electric Vehicle (EV) market in Beijing, China at the micro level with an agent-based integrated urban model (SelfSim-EV), considering the interactions, feedbacks and dynamics found in the complex urban system. Specifically, a calibrated and validated SelfSim-EV Beijing model was firstly used to simulate how the EV market might expand in the context of urban evolution from 2016 to 2020, based on which the potential impacts of EV market expansion on the environment, power grid system and transportation infrastructures were assessed at the multiple resolutions. The results suggest that 1) the adoption rate of Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) increases over the period, whereas the rate of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) almost remains the same; Furthermore, the so-called neighbour effects appear to influence the uptake of BEVs, based on the spatial analyses of the residential locations of BEV owners; 2) the EV market expansion could eventually benefit the environment, as evident from the slight decrease in the amounts of HC, CO and CO2 emissions after 2017; 3) Charging demand accounting for around 4% of total residential electricity demand in 2020 may put slight pressure on the power grid system; 4) the EV market expansion could influence several EV-related transport facilities, including parking lots, refuelling stations, and charging posts at parking lots, in terms of quantity, layout and usage. These results are expected to be useful for different EV-related stakeholders, such as local authorities and manufacturers, to shape polices and invest in technologies and infrastructures for EVs
Peer-to-peer and community-based markets: A comprehensive review
The advent of more proactive consumers, the so-called "prosumers", with
production and storage capabilities, is empowering the consumers and bringing
new opportunities and challenges to the operation of power systems in a market
environment. Recently, a novel proposal for the design and operation of
electricity markets has emerged: these so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity
markets conceptually allow the prosumers to directly share their electrical
energy and investment. Such P2P markets rely on a consumer-centric and
bottom-up perspective by giving the opportunity to consumers to freely choose
the way they are to source their electric energy. A community can also be
formed by prosumers who want to collaborate, or in terms of operational energy
management. This paper contributes with an overview of these new P2P markets
that starts with the motivation, challenges, market designs moving to the
potential future developments in this field, providing recommendations while
considering a test-case
Architectures for smart end-user services in the power grid
Abstract-The increase of distributed renewable electricity generators, such as solar cells and wind turbines, requires a new energy management system. These distributed generators introduce bidirectional energy flows in the low-voltage power grid, requiring novel coordination mechanisms to balance local supply and demand. Closed solutions exist for energy management on the level of individual homes. However, no service architectures have been defined that allow the growing number of end-users to interact with the other power consumers and generators and to get involved in more rational energy consumption patterns using intuitive applications. We therefore present a common service architecture that allows houses with renewable energy generation and smart energy devices to plug into a distributed energy management system, integrated with the public power grid. Next to the technical details, we focus on the usability aspects of the end-user applications in order to contribute to high service adoption and optimal user involvement. The presented architecture facilitates end-users to reduce net energy consumption, enables power grid providers to better balance supply and demand, and allows new actors to join with new services. We present a novel simulator that allows to evaluate both the power grid and data communication aspects, and illustrate a 22% reduction of the peak load by deploying a central coordinator inside the home gateway of an end-user
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