Integrating Energy Storage into the Smart Grid: A Prospect Theoretic Approach

In this paper, the interactions and energy exchange decisions of a number of geographically distributed storage units are studied under decision-making involving end-users. In particular, a noncooperative game is formulated between customer-owned storage units where each storage unit's owner can decide on whether to charge or discharge energy with a given probability so as to maximize a utility that reflects the tradeoff between the monetary transactions from charging/discharging and the penalty from power regulation. Unlike existing game-theoretic works which assume that players make their decisions rationally and objectively, we use the new framework of prospect theory (PT) to explicitly incorporate the users' subjective perceptions of their expected utilities. For the two-player game, we show the existence of a proper mixed Nash equilibrium for both the standard game-theoretic case and the case with PT considerations. Simulation results show that incorporating user behavior via PT reveals several important insights into load management as well as economics of energy storage usage. For instance, the results show that deviations from conventional game theory, as predicted by PT, can lead to undesirable grid loads and revenues thus requiring the power company to revisit its pricing schemes and the customers to reassess their energy storage usage choices.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, conferenc

Supporting high penetrations of renewable generation via implementation of real-time electricity pricing and demand response

The rollout of smart meters raises the prospect that domestic customer electrical demand can be responsive to changes in supply capacity. Such responsive demand will become increasingly relevant in electrical power systems, as the proportion of weather-dependent renewable generation increases, due to the difficulty and expense of storing electrical energy. One method of providing response is to allow direct control of customer devices by network operators, as in the UK 'Economy 7' and 'White Meter' schemes used to control domestic electrical heating. However, such direct control is much less acceptable for loads such as washing machines, lighting and televisions. This study instead examines the use of real-time pricing of electricity in the domestic sector. This allows customers to be flexible but, importantly, to retain overall control. A simulation methodology for highlighting the potential effects of, and possible problems with, a national implementation of real-time pricing in the UK domestic electricity market is presented. This is done by disaggregating domestic load profiles and then simulating price-based elastic and load-shifting responses. Analysis of a future UK scenario with 15 GW wind penetration shows that during low-wind events, UK peak demand could be reduced by 8-11 GW. This could remove the requirement for 8-11 GW of standby generation with a capital cost of £2.6 to £3.6 billion. Recommended further work is the investigation of improved demand-forecasting and the price-setting strategies. This is a fine balance between giving customers access to plentiful, cheap energy when it is available, but increasing prices just enough to reduce demand to meet the supply capacity when this capacity is limited

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 network—the 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

A Flexible Distributed Infrastructure for Real-Time Co-Simulations in Smart Grids

Due to the increasing penetration of distributed generation, storage, electric vehicles and new ICT technologies, distribution networks are evolving towards the Smart Grid paradigm. For this reason, new control strategies, algorithms and technologies need to be tested and validated before their actual field implementation. In this paper we present a novel modular distributed infrastructure, based on real-time simulation, for multi-purpose Smart Grid studies. The different components of the infrastructure are described and the system is applied to a case study based on a real urban district located in northern Italy. The presented infrastructure is shown to be flexible and useful for different and multi-disciplinary Smart Grid studies

Grid Mind: Prolog-Based Simulation Environment for Future Energy Grids

Fundamental changes in the current energy grids, towards the so called smart grids, initiated a range of projects involving extensive deployment of metering and control devices into the grid infrastructure. Since in many countries, the choice of supportive information and communication technologies (ICT) for the grid devices still remains an open question, benchmarking tools aimed at predicting their behavior in the deployed solution play an essential role in the decision-making process. This paper presents a Prolog-based simulation environment, named Grid Mind, primarily intended for the very purpose. The tool was successfully used to generate simulation scenarios in several smart-grid related projects and became a self-standing simulation tool for the evaluation of information and communication technologies used to deliver lowvoltage metering and monitoring data. The tool is continuously evolving, aimed to become an integral part of the future energy grid design in the Czech Republic and beyond

Assessing and augmenting SCADA cyber security: a survey of techniques

SCADA systems monitor and control critical infrastructures of national importance such as power generation and distribution, water supply, transportation networks, and manufacturing facilities. The pervasiveness, miniaturisations and declining costs of internet connectivity have transformed these systems from strictly isolated to highly interconnected networks. The connectivity provides immense benefits such as reliability, scalability and remote connectivity, but at the same time exposes an otherwise isolated and secure system, to global cyber security threats. This inevitable transformation to highly connected systems thus necessitates effective security safeguards to be in place as any compromise or downtime of SCADA systems can have severe economic, safety and security ramifications. One way to ensure vital asset protection is to adopt a viewpoint similar to an attacker to determine weaknesses and loopholes in defences. Such mind sets help to identify and fix potential breaches before their exploitation. This paper surveys tools and techniques to uncover SCADA system vulnerabilities. A comprehensive review of the selected approaches is provided along with their applicability

ABS-FishCount: An Agent-Based Simulator of Underwater Sensors for Measuring the Amount of Fish

[EN] Underwater sensors provide one of the possibilities to explore oceans, seas, rivers, fish farms and dams, which all together cover most of our planet's area. Simulators can be helpful to test and discover some possible strategies before implementing these in real underwater sensors. This speeds up the development of research theories so that these can be implemented later. In this context, the current work presents an agent-based simulator for defining and testing strategies for measuring the amount of fish by means of underwater sensors. The current approach is illustrated with the definition and assessment of two strategies for measuring fish. One of these two corresponds to a simple control mechanism, while the other is an experimental strategy and includes an implicit coordination mechanism. The experimental strategy showed a statistically significant improvement over the control one in the reduction of errors with a large Cohen's d effect size of 2.55.This work acknowledges the research project Desarrollo Colaborativo de Soluciones AAL with reference TIN2014-57028-R funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. This work has been supported by the program Estancias de movilidad en el extranjero José Castillejo para jóvenes doctores funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport with reference CAS17/00005. We also acknowledge support from Universidad de Zaragoza , Fundación Bancaria Ibercaja and Fundación CAI in the Programa Ibercaja-CAI de Estancias de Investigación with reference IT24/16. We acknowledge the research project Construcción de un framework para agilizar el desarrollo de aplicaciones móviles en el ámbito de la salud funded by University of Zaragoza and Foundation Ibercaja with grant reference JIUZ-2017-TEC-03. It has also been supported by Organismo Autónomo Programas Educativos Europeos with reference 2013-1-CZ1-GRU06-14277. We also aknowledge support from project Sensores vestibles y tecnología móvil como apoyo en la formación y práctica de mindfulness: prototipo previo aplicado a bienestar funded by University of Zaragoza with grant number UZ2017-TEC-02. Furthermore, we acknowledge the Fondo Social Europeo and the Departamento de Tecnología y Universidad del Gobierno de Aragón for their joint support with grant number Ref-T81.García-Magariño, I.; Lacuesta Gilabert, R.; Lloret, J. (2017). ABS-FishCount: An Agent-Based Simulator of Underwater Sensors for Measuring the Amount of Fish. Sensors. 17(11):1-19. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17112606S1191711Lloret, J. (2013). Underwater Sensor Nodes and Networks. Sensors, 13(9), 11782-11796. doi:10.3390/s130911782Akyildiz, I. F., Pompili, D., & Melodia, T. (2005). Underwater acoustic sensor networks: research challenges. 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Development of an optical communication type biosensor for real-time monitoring of fish stress. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 247, 765-773. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2017.03.034Chen, Z., Zhang, Z., Dai, F., Bu, Y., & Wang, H. (2017). Monocular Vision-Based Underwater Object Detection. Sensors, 17(8), 1784. doi:10.3390/s17081784Saberioon, M. M., & Cisar, P. (2016). Automated multiple fish tracking in three-Dimension using a Structured Light Sensor. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 121, 215-221. doi:10.1016/j.compag.2015.12.014Pais, M. P., & Cabral, H. N. (2017). Fish behaviour effects on the accuracy and precision of underwater visual census surveys. A virtual ecologist approach using an individual-based model. Ecological Modelling, 346, 58-69. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2016.12.011Burget, P., & Pachner, D. (2005). FISH FARM AUTOMATION. 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Telecommunication Systems, 60(1), 67-84. doi:10.1007/s11235-014-9922-3Bharamagoudra, M. R., Manvi, S. S., & Gonen, B. (2017). Event driven energy depth and channel aware routing for underwater acoustic sensor networks: Agent oriented clustering based approach. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 58, 1-19. doi:10.1016/j.compeleceng.2017.01.004Gallehdari, Z., Meskin, N., & Khorasani, K. (2017). Distributed reconfigurable control strategies for switching topology networked multi-agent systems. ISA Transactions, 71, 51-67. doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2017.06.008Jurdak, R., Elfes, A., Kusy, B., Tews, A., Hu, W., Hernandez, E., … Sikka, P. (2015). Autonomous surveillance for biosecurity. Trends in Biotechnology, 33(4), 201-207. doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2015.01.003García-Magariño, I., & Plaza, I. (2015). FTS-SOCI: An agent-based framework for simulating teaching strategies with evolutions of sociograms. Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory, 57, 161-178. doi:10.1016/j.simpat.2015.07.003Cooke, S. J., Brownscombe, J. W., Raby, G. D., Broell, F., Hinch, S. G., Clark, T. D., & Semmens, J. M. (2016). Remote bioenergetics measurements in wild fish: Opportunities and challenges. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology, 202, 23-37. doi:10.1016/j.cbpa.2016.03.022García, M. R., Cabo, M. L., Herrera, J. R., Ramilo-Fernández, G., Alonso, A. A., & Balsa-Canto, E. (2017). Smart sensor to predict retail fresh fish quality under ice storage. Journal of Food Engineering, 197, 87-97. doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2016.11.006Tušer, M., Frouzová, J., Balk, H., Muška, M., Mrkvička, T., & Kubečka, J. (2014). Evaluation of potential bias in observing fish with a DIDSON acoustic camera. Fisheries Research, 155, 114-121. doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2014.02.031Rakowitz, G., Tušer, M., Říha, M., Jůza, T., Balk, H., & Kubečka, J. (2012). Use of high-frequency imaging sonar (DIDSON) to observe fish behaviour towards a surface trawl. 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Affine arithmetic-based methodology for energy hub operation-scheduling in the presence of data uncertainty

In this study, the role of self-validated computing for solving the energy hub-scheduling problem in the presence of multiple and heterogeneous sources of data uncertainties is explored and a new solution paradigm based on affine arithmetic is conceptualised. The benefits deriving from the application of this methodology are analysed in details, and several numerical results are presented and discussed

Expert survey and classification of tools for modeling and simulating hybrid energy networks

Sector coupling is expected to play a key role in the decarbonization of the energy system by enabling the integration of decentralized renewable energy sources and unlocking hitherto unused synergies between generation, storage and consumption. Within this context, a transition towards hybrid energy networks (HENs), which couple power, heating/cooling and gas grids, is a necessary requirement to implement sector coupling on a large scale. However, this transition poses practical challenges, because the traditional domain-specific approaches struggle to cover all aspects of HENs. Methods and tools for conceptualization, system planning and design as well as system operation support exist for all involved domains, but their adaption or extension beyond the domain they were originally intended for is still a matter of research and development. Therefore, this work presents innovative tools for modeling and simulating HENs. A categorization of these tools is performed based on a clustering of their most relevant features. It is shown that this categorization has a strong correlation with the results of an independently carried out expert review of potential application areas. This good agreement is a strong indicator that the proposed classification categories can successfully capture and characterize the most important features of tools for HENs. Furthermore, it allows to provide a guideline for early adopters to understand which tools and methods best fit the requirements of their specific applications