Smart Grid for the Smart City

Modern cities are embracing cutting-edge technologies to improve the services they offer to the citizens from traffic control to the reduction of greenhouse gases and energy provisioning. In this chapter, we look at the energy sector advocating how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and signal processing techniques can be integrated into next generation power grids for an increased effectiveness in terms of: electrical stability, distribution, improved communication security, energy production, and utilization. In particular, we deliberate about the use of these techniques within new demand response paradigms, where communities of prosumers (e.g., households, generating part of their electricity consumption) contribute to the satisfaction of the energy demand through load balancing and peak shaving. Our discussion also covers the use of big data analytics for demand response and serious games as a tool to promote energy-efficient behaviors from end users

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

Differentially Private State Estimation in Distribution Networks with Smart Meters

State estimation is routinely being performed in high-voltage power transmission grids in order to assist in operation and to detect faulty equipment. In low- and medium-voltage power distribution grids, on the other hand, few real-time measurements are traditionally available, and operation is often conducted based on predicted and historical data. Today, in many parts of the world, smart meters have been deployed at many customers, and their measurements could in principle be shared with the operators in real time to enable improved state estimation. However, customers may feel reluctance in doing so due to privacy concerns. We therefore propose state estimation schemes for a distribution grid model, which ensure differential privacy to the customers. In particular, the state estimation schemes optimize different performance criteria, and a trade-off between a lower bound on the estimation performance versus the customers' differential privacy is derived. The proposed framework is general enough to be applicable also to other distribution networks, such as water and gas networks