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

Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems

Smart grid technologies : communication technologies and standards

For 100 years, there has been no change in the basic structure of the electrical power grid. Experiences have shown that the hierarchical, centrally controlled grid of the 20th Century is ill-suited to the needs of the 21st Century. To address the challenges of the existing power grid, the new concept of smart grid has emerged. The smart grid can be considered as a modern electric power grid infrastructure for enhanced efficiency and reliability through automated control, high-power converters, modern communications infrastructure, sensing and metering technologies, and modern energy management techniques based on the optimization of demand, energy and network availability, and so on. While current power systems are based on a solid information and communication infrastructure, the new smart grid needs a different and much more complex one, as its dimension is much larger. This paper addresses critical issues on smart grid technologies primarily in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) issues and opportunities. The main objective of this paper is to provide a contemporary look at the current state of the art in smart grid communications as well as to discuss the still-open research issues in this field. It is expected that this paper will provide a better understanding of the technologies, potential advantages and research challenges of the smart grid and provoke interest among the research community to further explore this promising research area.http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=942

Upgrading the Power Grid Functionalities with Broadband Power Line Communications: Basis, Applications, Current Trends and Challenges

This article reviews the basis and the main aspects of the recent evolution of Broadband Power Line Communications (BB-PLC or, more commonly, BPL) technologies. The article starts describing the organizations and alliances involved in the development and evolution of BPL systems, as well as the standardization institutions working on PLC technologies. Then, a short description of the technical foundation of the recent proposed technologies and a comparison of the main specifications are presented; the regulatory activities related to the limits of emissions and immunity are also addressed. Finally, some representative applications of BPL and some selected use cases enabled by these technologies are summarized, together with the main challenges to be faced.This work was financially supported in part by the Basque Government under the grants IT1426-22, PRE_2021_1_0006, and PRE_2021_1_0051, and by the Spanish Government under the grants PID2021-124706OB-I00 and RTI2018-099162-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”)

Smart Grid as integration technology for energy supply and telecommunication networks

Our high-tech XXI century is, in particular, the century of “small power supply systems” due to the use of advanced information and communication technologies in energy networks. Creation of combined systems called Smart Grid opens great prospects for the development of both of these industries (energy and IT) and is intended to provide a synergetic effect. This paper examines existing models of Smart Grid, the suitable basic networking technologies, as well as typical usage scenarios for integrated intelligent networks

Smart Vehicle to Grid Interface Project: Electromobility Management System Architecture and Field Test Results

This paper presents and discusses the electromobility management system developed in the context of the SMARTV2G project, enabling the automatic control of plug-in electric vehicles' (PEVs') charging processes. The paper describes the architecture and the software/hardware components of the electromobility management system. The focus is put in particular on the implementation of a centralized demand side management control algorithm, which allows remote real time control of the charging stations in the field, according to preferences and constraints expressed by all the actors involved (in particular the distribution system operator and the PEV users). The results of the field tests are reported and discussed, highlighting critical issues raised from the field experience.Comment: To appear in IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference (IEEE IEVC 2014

POWER LINE COMMUNICATIONS FOR SMART HOME NETWORKS: MODELING, SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION

In recent years, research and development efforts are devoted to the deployment of information and communication technology (ICT) within residential buildings and houses, in order to provide services that will increase the quality of life. Although this trend is originated in the late 60’s as a result of the application of industrial automation to residential buildings and houses, i.e., home automation, nowadays, further services are offered to the final users, i.e., home networking and energy management. In fact, a lot of effort is put on the joint delivery of these services in order to make the home, namely the smart home (SH), an integral part of the future smart grid (SG). The concept of SH can be described as a house equipped with electronic systems and appliances, namely, “smart” appliances, which are able to exchange information by means of a communication network. However, these systems are characterized by a broad variety of communication technologies, standards and protocols, so that they often cannot interconnect, and/or interoperate and in some cases even coexist. In our opinion, coexistence, interconnection and interoperability problems represents the bottleneck to a pervasive deployment of smart appliances and systems within residential buildings and houses. To this respect, the first topic that we consider in this thesis is the definition of the SH network architecture and devices, which allows to obtain convergence among smart appliances. To this aim, a survey of the communication technologies, standards, protocols and also media, which can be used for SH applications, is necessary in order to define a network topology that is able to be scalable, extensible, and rather reliable. Moreover, in order to achieve interconnectivity among “smart” appliances, we define a shared common layer that is able to manage heterogeneous lower layers allowing network convergence. Once defined the SH network architecture and its network devices, we focus on power line communication (PLC) technologies and we implement a network testbed in order to evaluate some of the functionalities of the SH network within real environments. From the analysis of field trial data, we are able to highlight performances and disadvantages of two representative narrow band PLC (NB-PLC) solutions. Furthermore, exploiting the network testbed where broadband PLC (BB-PLC) technology is used to provide an Ethernet backbone for NB-PLC devices, we achieve interconnectivity between heterogeneous devices and we observe a significant improvement of the performances. Although NB-PLC technologies have been conceived for the development of low data rate applications and, in particular, for automatic meter reading (AMR), we focus our attention on the G3-PLC technology, for which we propose enhancements at the medium access control (MAC) sub-layer to allow the implementation of SH applications that could potentially require higher data rate than AMR. The G3-PLC technology has been taken into account since (i) it has been used as baseline technology for the development of popular communication standards for SG applications, and (ii) we have found, from the field trials, that the performance of NB-PLC may be poor in large houses where the signal is strongly attenuated because it spans large distances and crosses different circuit breakers (CBs), e.g., in multi-floor houses. Furthermore, an innovative cross-platform simulator that allows to realistically simulate the G3-PLC technology up to the network layer is presented. The proposed cross-platform consists of two different simulators jointly connected: one for the physical (PHY) layer and one for the data link layer (DLL)/network layer (NL). The PHY layer simulator is implemented in MATLAB, while the DLL/network simulator in OMNeT++. A convergent network architecture that permits the integration of the G3-PLC technology within a switched Ethernet network is also presented with the aim of improving the G3-PLC performance in large scale houses/buildings. The performance of the considered communication technology are presented through extensive numerical results for the in-home application scenario. Finally, the cross-platform simulator is used to evaluate G3-PLC systems for SG applications in the access network scenario. This is fundamental since the interaction of the outside world, i.e., the access network, with the SH is mandatory in order to achieve and exploit the SG concept. Moreover, to improve the performance and coverage of G3-PLC, a simple adaptive tone mapping algorithm together with a routing algorithm are also presented.Ricerca condotta all'interno del WiPLi Lab/Wireless and Power Line Communications LaboratoryopenDottorato di ricerca in Ingegneria industriale e dell'informazioneopenDI BERT, Luc

Resource allocation technique for powerline network using a modified shuffled frog-leaping algorithm

Resource allocation (RA) techniques should be made efficient and optimized in order to enhance the QoS (power & bit, capacity, scalability) of high-speed networking data applications. This research attempts to further increase the efficiency towards near-optimal performance. RA’s problem involves assignment of subcarriers, power and bit amounts for each user efficiently. Several studies conducted by the Federal Communication Commission have proven that conventional RA approaches are becoming insufficient for rapid demand in networking resulted in spectrum underutilization, low capacity and convergence, also low performance of bit error rate, delay of channel feedback, weak scalability as well as computational complexity make real-time solutions intractable. Mainly due to sophisticated, restrictive constraints, multi-objectives, unfairness, channel noise, also unrealistic when assume perfect channel state is available. The main goal of this work is to develop a conceptual framework and mathematical model for resource allocation using Shuffled Frog-Leap Algorithm (SFLA). Thus, a modified SFLA is introduced and integrated in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. Then SFLA generated random population of solutions (power, bit), the fitness of each solution is calculated and improved for each subcarrier and user. The solution is numerically validated and verified by simulation-based powerline channel. The system performance was compared to similar research works in terms of the system’s capacity, scalability, allocated rate/power, and convergence. The resources allocated are constantly optimized and the capacity obtained is constantly higher as compared to Root-finding, Linear, and Hybrid evolutionary algorithms. The proposed algorithm managed to offer fastest convergence given that the number of iterations required to get to the 0.001% error of the global optimum is 75 compared to 92 in the conventional techniques. Finally, joint allocation models for selection of optima resource values are introduced; adaptive power and bit allocators in OFDM system-based Powerline and using modified SFLA-based TLBO and PSO are propose

Performance Evaluation of Communication Technologies and Network Structure for Smart Grid Applications

The design of an effective and reliable communication network supporting smart grid applications requires the selection of appropriate communication technologies and protocols. The objective of this study is to study and quantify the capabilities of an advanced metring infrastructure (AMI) to support the simultaneous operation of major smart grid functions. These include smart metring, price-induced controls, distribution automation, demand response, and electric vehicle charging/discharging applications in terms of throughput and latency. OPNET is used to simulate the performance of selected communication technologies and protocols. Research findings indicate that smart grid applications can operate simultaneously by piggybacking on an existing AMI infrastructure and still achieve their latency requirements