Digitalization Processes in Distribution Grids: A Comprehensive Review of Strategies and Challenges

This systematic review meticulously explores the transformative impact of digital technologies on the grid planning, grid operations, and energy market dynamics of power distribution grids. Utilizing a robust methodological framework, over 54,000 scholarly articles were analyzed to investigate the integration and effects of artificial intelligence, machine learning, optimization, the Internet of Things, and advanced metering infrastructure within these key subsections. The literature was categorized to show how these technologies contribute specifically to grid planning, operation, and market mechanisms. It was found that digitalization significantly enhances grid planning through improved forecasting accuracy and robust infrastructure design. In operations, these technologies enable real-time management and advanced fault detection, thereby enhancing reliability and operational efficiency. Moreover, in the market domain, they support more efficient energy trading and help in achieving regulatory compliance, thus fostering transparent and competitive markets. However, challenges such as data complexity and system integration are identified as critical hurdles that must be overcome to fully harness the potential of smart grid technologies. This review not only highlights the comprehensive benefits but also maps out the interdependencies among the planning, operation, and market strategies, underlining the critical role of digital technologies in advancing sustainable and resilient energy systems

Towards the next generation of smart grids: semantic and holonic multi-agent management of distributed energy resources

The energy landscape is experiencing accelerating change; centralized energy systems are being decarbonized, and transitioning towards distributed energy systems, facilitated by advances in power system management and information and communication technologies. This paper elaborates on these generations of energy systems by critically reviewing relevant authoritative literature. This includes a discussion of modern concepts such as ‘smart grid’, ‘microgrid’, ‘virtual power plant’ and ‘multi-energy system’, and the relationships between them, as well as the trends towards distributed intelligence and interoperability. Each of these emerging urban energy concepts holds merit when applied within a centralized grid paradigm, but very little research applies these approaches within the emerging energy landscape typified by a high penetration of distributed energy resources, prosumers (consumers and producers), interoperability, and big data. Given the ongoing boom in these fields, this will lead to new challenges and opportunities as the status-quo of energy systems changes dramatically. We argue that a new generation of holonic energy systems is required to orchestrate the interplay between these dense, diverse and distributed energy components. The paper therefore contributes a description of holonic energy systems and the implicit research required towards sustainability and resilience in the imminent energy landscape. This promotes the systemic features of autonomy, belonging, connectivity, diversity and emergence, and balances global and local system objectives, through adaptive control topologies and demand responsive energy management. Future research avenues are identified to support this transition regarding interoperability, secure distributed control and a system of systems approach

Advancements in Enhancing Resilience of Electrical Distribution Systems: A Review on Frameworks, Metrics, and Technological Innovations

This comprehensive review paper explores power system resilience, emphasizing its evolution, comparison with reliability, and conducting a thorough analysis of the definition and characteristics of resilience. The paper presents the resilience frameworks and the application of quantitative power system resilience metrics to assess and quantify resilience. Additionally, it investigates the relevance of complex network theory in the context of power system resilience. An integral part of this review involves examining the incorporation of data-driven techniques in enhancing power system resilience. This includes the role of data-driven methods in enhancing power system resilience and predictive analytics. Further, the paper explores the recent techniques employed for resilience enhancement, which includes planning and operational techniques. Also, a detailed explanation of microgrid (MG) deployment, renewable energy integration, and peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading in fortifying power systems against disruptions is provided. An analysis of existing research gaps and challenges is discussed for future directions toward improvements in power system resilience. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of power system resilience is provided, which helps in improving the ability of distribution systems to withstand and recover from extreme events and disruptions

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

On an Information and Control Architecture for Future Electric Energy Systems

This paper presents considerations towards an information and control architecture for future electric energy systems driven by massive changes resulting from the societal goals of decarbonization and electrification. This paper describes the new requirements and challenges of an extended information and control architecture that need to be addressed for continued reliable delivery of electricity. It identifies several new actionable information and control loops, along with their spatial and temporal scales of operation, which can together meet the needs of future grids and enable deep decarbonization of the electricity sector. The present architecture of electric power grids designed in a different era is thereby extensible to allow the incorporation of increased renewables and other emerging electric loads.Comment: This paper is accepted, to appear in the Proceedings of the IEE

ESPRESSO – systEmic Standardisation apPRoach to Empower Smart citieS and cOmmunities

Innovative Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie ist ein Schlüsselelement bei der Transformationzur Smart City. Aus technologischer Sicht muss in den städtischen IKT-Netzwerken ein bestimmter Standardisierungsgrad erreicht werden. Diese Standards müssen gleichermaßen für Stadtverwaltungen, Unternehmen und Bürger offen sein und so innovative Bottom-up-Lösungen ermöglichen. Das ESPRESSO-Konsortium umfasst Partner aus Smart Cities, öffentlichen Verwaltungen, europäischen Normungsorganisationen, nationalen Normungsgremien,Standardentwicklungsorganisationen, Industrievertretern und Forschungseinrichtungen. Das Hauptziel von ESPRESSO ist es, die Interoperabilität von Smart City-Lösungen sicherzustellen. Dies hilft Städten, Eintrittsbarrieren oder die Abhängigkeit von Anbietern zu vermeiden, indem sie gemeinsame Metadatenstrukturen und Anstelle von Proprietäten, offeneinteroperable Schnittstellen verwenden. Um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, hat ESPRESSO ein konzeptionelles Smart-City-Informations-Framework entwickelt, das auf offenen Standards basiert. Für diesen Rahmen ist es notwendig, ein gemeinsames Smart City-Vokabular zu entwickeln und Referenzarchitektur sowie Stadtinformationsindikatoren zu definieren. Im Rahmen des Projekts wurde ein auf Fallstudien basierender Ansatz verwendet, um Schlüsselanforderungen für weitere Standardanalyseaktivitäten zu identifizieren. Durch eine zusätzliche Stärken-Schwächen-Analyse wurden sowohl existierende als auch neu entwickelte Standards untersucht, umdie aktuell verwendeten Standards zu verbessern und verlässlichere für die Zukunft zu entwickeln. Die meisten der ursprünglich entwickelten Smart City Konzepte konzentrieren sich auf die Optimierung und Effizienz des Siedlungsraums. Häufig sind diese Ansätze top-down organisiert und betrachten den sozialen Stadtbereich nur unzureichend. Um die sozialen Auswirkungen und die gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz der entwickelten Lösungen zu verbessern, hat ESPRESSO ein Stakeholder-Kommunikationsnetzwerk eingerichtet, das einen frühen Dialog zwischen allen Beteiligen ermöglicht. Zur Unterstützung des theoretischen Ansatzes hat ESPRESSO vier Fallstudien in zwei Pilotstädten, Rotterdam (Niederlande) und Tartu (Estland), durchgeführt. Dabei wurde in unterschiedlichen Szenarien der Einsatz von standardisierten Smart City Lösungen getestet und anschleißend analysiert

Enhancing Cyber-Resiliency of DER-based SmartGrid: A Survey

The rapid development of information and communications technology has enabled the use of digital-controlled and software-driven distributed energy resources (DERs) to improve the flexibility and efficiency of power supply, and support grid operations. However, this evolution also exposes geographically-dispersed DERs to cyber threats, including hardware and software vulnerabilities, communication issues, and personnel errors, etc. Therefore, enhancing the cyber-resiliency of DER-based smart grid - the ability to survive successful cyber intrusions - is becoming increasingly vital and has garnered significant attention from both industry and academia. In this survey, we aim to provide a systematical and comprehensive review regarding the cyber-resiliency enhancement (CRE) of DER-based smart grid. Firstly, an integrated threat modeling method is tailored for the hierarchical DER-based smart grid with special emphasis on vulnerability identification and impact analysis. Then, the defense-in-depth strategies encompassing prevention, detection, mitigation, and recovery are comprehensively surveyed, systematically classified, and rigorously compared. A CRE framework is subsequently proposed to incorporate the five key resiliency enablers. Finally, challenges and future directions are discussed in details. The overall aim of this survey is to demonstrate the development trend of CRE methods and motivate further efforts to improve the cyber-resiliency of DER-based smart grid.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid for Publication Consideratio