Smart Energy and Intelligent Transportation Systems

With the Internet of Things and various information and communication technologies, a city can manage its assets in a smarter way, constituting the urban development vision of a smart city. This facilitates a more efficient use of physical infrastructure and encourages citizen participation. Smart energy and smart mobility are among the key aspects of the smart city, in which the electric vehicle (EV) is believed to take a key role. EVs are powered by various energy sources or the electricity grid. With proper scheduling, a large fleet of EVs can be charged from charging stations and parking infrastructures. Although the battery capacity of a single EV is small, an aggregation of EVs can perform as a significant power source or load, constituting a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system. Besides acquiring energy from the grid, in V2G, EVs can also support the grid by providing various demand response and auxiliary services. Thanks to this, we can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and utilize the renewable energy more effectively. This Special Issue “Smart Energy and Intelligent Transportation Systems” addresses existing knowledge gaps and advances smart energy and mobility. It consists of five peer-reviewed papers that cover a range of subjects and applications related to smart energy and transportation

How internet concepts and technologies can help green and smarten the electrical grid

Several powerful forces are gathering to make fundamental and irrevocable changes to the century-old grid. The next-generation grid, often called the ‘smart grid, ’ will feature distributed energy production, vastly more storage, tens of millions of stochastic renewable-energy sources, and the use of communication technologies both to allow precise match-ing of supply to demand and to incentivize appropriate con-sumer behaviour. These changes will have the effect of re-ducing energy waste and reducing the carbon footprint of the grid, making it ‘smarter ’ and ‘greener. ’ In this po-sition paper, we discuss how the concepts and techniques pioneered by the Internet, the fruit of four decades of re-search in this area, are directly applicable to the design of a smart, green grid. This is because both the Internet and the electrical grid are designed to meet fundamental needs, for information and for energy, respectively, by connecting geographically dispersed suppliers with geographically dis-persed consumers. Keeping this and other similarities (and fundamental differences, as well) in mind, we propose sev-eral specific areas where Internet concepts and technologies can contribute to the development of a smart, green grid. We also describe some areas where the Internet operations can be improved based on the experience gained in the elec-trical grid. We hope that our work will initiate a dialogue between the Internet and the smart grid communities

Start-up of virtual synchronous machine: methods and experimental comparison

A modern grid is smarter mainly in the advance in information and communication technologies, while the power processing mechanism does not make a big difference. To make a modern grid smarter, the grid control should be improved to process the power in a smarter way. Therefore, it is easily foreseen that virtual synchronous machines, which emulates the synchronous machines based on power converters, may have big potentials in a future energy internet. This paper uses the Synchronous Power Controller with emulated and improved synchronous machine characteristics for renewable generation systems and proposes two start-up strategies. The proposed strategies are explained in detail, verified and compared by experimental results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Smart Change in Strategy: IBM‘s Response to Challenging Times

International Business Machines, or IBM, has been an indisputable force in the communications industry, leading the world into the modern, global technological age. Currently, IBM has revamped its business paradigm, allocating the majority of its resources to consulting work and data analyses rather than manufacturing as it had done so in the past — for the primary objectives of optimizing existing assets, resolving problems of burgeoning cities and beleaguered governments, and enhancing peoples‘ lives in a sustainable way

Perspectives of Integrated “Next Industrial Revolution” Clusters in Poland and Siberia

Rozdział z: Functioning of the Local Production Systems in Central and Eastern European Countries and Siberia. Case Studies and Comparative Studies, ed. Mariusz E. Sokołowicz.The paper presents the mapping of potential next industrial revolution clusters in Poland and Siberia. Deindustrialization of the cities and struggles with its consequences are one of the fundamental economic problems in current global economy. Some hope to find an answer to that problem is associated with the idea of next industrial revolution and reindustrialization initiatives. In the paper, projects aimed at developing next industrial revolution clusters are analyzed. The objective of the research was to examine new industrial revolution paradigm as a platform for establishing university-based trans-border industry clusters in Poland and Siberia47 and to raise awareness of next industry revolution initiatives.Monograph financed under a contract of execution of the international scientific project within 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, co-financed by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (title: “Functioning of the Local Production Systems in the Conditions of Economic Crisis (Comparative Analysis and Benchmarking for the EU and Beyond”)). Monografia sfinansowana w oparciu o umowę o wykonanie projektu między narodowego w ramach 7. Programu Ramowego UE, współfinansowanego ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego (tytuł projektu: „Funkcjonowanie lokalnych systemów produkcyjnych w warunkach kryzysu gospodarczego (analiza porównawcza i benchmarking w wybranych krajach UE oraz krajach trzecich”))

Energy and Smart Growth: It's about How and Where We Build

By efficiently locating development, smarter growth land use policies and practices offer a viable way to reduce U.S. energy consumption. Moreover, by increasing attention on how we build, in addition to where we build, smart growth could become even more energy smart. The smart growth and energy efficiency movements thus are intrinsically linked, yet these two fields have mostly operated in separate worlds. Through greater use of energy efficient design, and renewable energy resources, the smart growth movement could better achieve its goals of environmental protection, economic security and prosperity, and community livability. In short, green building and smart growth should go hand in hand. Heightened concern about foreign oil dependence, climate change, and other ill effects of fossil fuel usage makes the energy-smart growth collaboration especially important. Strengthening this collaboration will involve overcoming some hurdles, however, and funders can play an important role in assisting these movements to gain strength from each other. This paper contends there is much to be gained by expanding the smart growth movement to include greater attention on energy. It provides a brief background on current energy trends and programs, relevant to smart growth. It then presents a framework for understanding the connections between energy and land use which focuses on two primary issues: how to build, which involves neighborhood and building design, and where to build, meaning that location matters. The final section offers suggestions to funders interesting in helping accelerate the merger of these fields

Smarter grid through collective intelligence: user awareness for enhanced performance

This paper examines the scenario of a university campus, and the impact on energy consumption of the awareness of building managers and users (lecturers, students and administrative staff).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Electric Vehicles Charging Control based on Future Internet Generic Enablers

In this paper a rationale for the deployment of Future Internet based applications in the field of Electric Vehicles (EVs) smart charging is presented. The focus is on the Connected Device Interface (CDI) Generic Enabler (GE) and the Network Information and Controller (NetIC) GE, which are recognized to have a potential impact on the charging control problem and the configuration of communications networks within reconfigurable clusters of charging points. The CDI GE can be used for capturing the driver feedback in terms of Quality of Experience (QoE) in those situations where the charging power is abruptly limited as a consequence of short term grid needs, like the shedding action asked by the Transmission System Operator to the Distribution System Operator aimed at clearing networks contingencies due to the loss of a transmission line or large wind power fluctuations. The NetIC GE can be used when a master Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) hosts the Load Area Controller, responsible for managing simultaneous charging sessions within a given Load Area (LA); the reconfiguration of distribution grid topology results in shift of EVSEs among LAs, then reallocation of slave EVSEs is needed. Involved actors, equipment, communications and processes are identified through the standardized framework provided by the Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM).Comment: To appear in IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference (IEEE IEVC 2014

Augmentation of Electrical Power Laboratory Students Learning Experience Through Simulations Software Enhancements During COVID-19

The quest for experienced Electrical Power Engineers in today\u27s workforce is increasing as Supervision Control and Data Acquisition-Internet of Things (SCADA- IOT) systems continue to be integrated into the power grid, thus making the grid smarter. The overall electric power network is undergoing changes due to the industrial use of smart machines incorporating power electronics devices and the deployment of renewable energy resources such as photo-voltaic and wind power generators. The challenges that have been generated as a result of this power grid modernization require universities and technical education institutions to modify their power engineering curriculum to include more of engineering students\u27 hands-on practical laboratory experience. Additionally, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of the year 2020 has created the awareness of the importance of necessary changes in the way laboratory classes are taught to improve student\u27s learning experience as well as achieve the desired learning objectives before the students graduate into the industry. Face-to-face laboratory courses need to be modified to satisfy mandated COVID 19 social distancing and other requirements. While the quest for experienced Electrical Power Engineers in today\u27s workforce is increasing as Supervision Control and Data Acquisition-Internet of Things (SCADA- IOT) systems continue to be integrated into the power grid. The grid smarter recent COVID-19 based limitations imposed on face-to-face teaching is most likely to adversely affect adequate delivery of laboratory instructions to engineering students. This study focuses on an electrical power laboratory course conducted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic using Electro-Mechanical System (EMS), where experiments with simulations, practical modules implementation and Data Acquisition and Control Interface (DACI) method are utilized to enhance the Laboratory experience. Electromechanical Systems Simulation Software, a web-browser based application, is used in the EMS simulations. The study examines the effectiveness of the simulations method together with remote practical demonstrations of power laboratory experiments. Every experiment conducted remotely to familiarize students with the operation of the power industry is accompanied by students\u27 computer simulations. The laboratory reports submitted by students are used to assess the result of the remote course delivery which is found to be satisfactory and more engaging to students than the traditional face-to-face teaching method

Smart Asset Management for Electric Utilities: Big Data and Future

This paper discusses about future challenges in terms of big data and new technologies. Utilities have been collecting data in large amounts but they are hardly utilized because they are huge in amount and also there is uncertainty associated with it. Condition monitoring of assets collects large amounts of data during daily operations. The question arises "How to extract information from large chunk of data?" The concept of "rich data and poor information" is being challenged by big data analytics with advent of machine learning techniques. Along with technological advancements like Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics will play an important role for electric utilities. In this paper, challenges are answered by pathways and guidelines to make the current asset management practices smarter for the future.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of 12th World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM) 201