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 Smart Meter Infrastructure for Smart Grid IoT Applications

Electric infrastructures have been pushed forward to handle tasks they were not originally designed to perform. To improve reliability and efficiency, state-of-the-art power grids include improved security, reduced peak loads, increased integration of renewable sources, and lower operational costs. In this framework, “smart grids” are built around bidirectional communication technologies, where “smart meters” communicate with all other entities and collect data from the power grid, offering specific features to each actor playing in the energy marketplace. In this paper, to overcome some of the challenges raised by smart grids and smart meters, we propose a distributed metering infrastructure which provides bidirectional communication, self-configuration, and auto-update capabilities. Our 3-phase smart meters follow the basics Internet-of-Things principles and have the ability to run, either on-board or distributed on the network, multiple algorithms for smart grid management. These algorithms can be freely added, updated, or removed on-the-fly thanks to the auto-update feature of the system. Moreover, to reduce costs and improve scalability, we prove that it is possible to implement our smart meters using only off-the-shelf and inexpensive hardware devices. A digital real-time simulator (i.e., Opal-RT) has been used to assess the capabilities of both the infrastructure and the meter. Our experimental analysis shows that the latency introduced by the data transmission over the Internet is compliant with the limits imposed by the IEC 61850 standard. As a consequence, our architecture does not affect the operational status of the smart grid, making it a viable solution to support the deployment of novel services

The role of communication systems in smart grids: Architectures, technical solutions and research challenges

The purpose of this survey is to present a critical overview of smart grid concepts, with a special focus on the role that communication, networking and middleware technologies will have in the transformation of existing electric power systems into smart grids. First of all we elaborate on the key technological, economical and societal drivers for the development of smart grids. By adopting a data-centric perspective we present a conceptual model of communication systems for smart grids, and we identify functional components, technologies, network topologies and communication services that are needed to support smart grid communications. Then, we introduce the fundamental research challenges in this field including communication reliability and timeliness, QoS support, data management services, and autonomic behaviors. Finally, we discuss the main solutions proposed in the literature for each of them, and we identify possible future research directions

Application of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks to Achieve Intelligent Microgrids: A Promising Approach towards a Global Smart Grid Deployment

Smart Grids (SGs) constitute the evolution of the traditional electrical grid towards a new paradigm, which should increase the reliability, the security and, at the same time, reduce the costs of energy generation, distribution and consumption. Electrical microgrids (MGs) can be considered the first stage of this evolution of the grid, because of the intelligent management techniques that must be applied to assure their correct operation. To accomplish this task, sensors and actuators will be necessary, along with wireless communication technologies to transmit the measured data and the command messages. Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANs) are therefore a promising solution to achieve an intelligent management of MGs and, by extension, the SG. In this frame, this paper surveys several aspects concerning the application of WSANs to manage MGs and the electrical grid, as well as the communication protocols that could be applied. The main concerns regarding the SG deployment are also presented, including future scenarios where the interoperability of different generation technologies must be assured