Overview and Improvement of Procedures and Practices of Electricity Transmission System Operators in South East Europe to Mitigate Cybersecurity Threats

The implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) in power systems increases the risks of cybersecurity threats, requiring protection measures that should reflect the multi-actor environment of the contemporary power systems. This paper provides a critical assessment of the cybersecurity practices of the transmission system operators (TSOs) from South East Europe (SEE) and the implementation of obligations for TSOs emerging from the complex set of cybersecurity and electricity legislation. The analyses of TSO cybersecurity practices are based on a survey conducted with the TSOs from SEE and show there is a lack of consistent cybersecurity policy at the TSO level. These analyses demonstrate that the differences between TSOs from the SEE region are not very significant with regards to implementation of technical protection and defense measures for critical infrastructures (CIs) and assets. The comprehensive analyses of electricity and cybersecurity legislation uncover the obligations of TSOs emerging from legislation and relate them to current TSO cybersecurity practices, confirming the necessity to boost existing practices. Considering the analyzed legislation and implemented practices, this paper presents a proposal for a cybersecurity framework for TSOs that should improve their organizational and operational response to the evolving cybersecurity challenges

Estimation of the Effect of COVID-19 Lockdown Impact Measures on Particulate Matter (PM) Concentrations in North Macedonia

Air pollution is one of the most important topics as it can cause various reactions of the organisms, such as mental health disorders, respiratory problems or various cardiovascular despises. Many of the side effects of pollution are caused by particulate matter (PM). Therefore air pollution, especially the concentration of PM is monitored in many European countries. In the past years, Skopje has been one of the top-ranked cities in the world concerning the concentration of PM. This paper investigates the effect of the pandemic with COVID-19 and the restriction measures on air quality. The data collected before the pandemic (May 2018), during the global pandemic (May 2020 and May 2021), and after the period with restriction measures (May 2022) are analyzed. The measurement parameters are collected at the technical campus of the Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia, in May 2018, May 2020, May 2021, and May 2022. In this research, it can be confirmed that the restriction measures had a significant positive impact on air pollution

Quantifying the impact of meteorological factors and green infrastructure location on particulate matter (PM) mitigation in Republic of North Macedonia using sensor collected data

Low quality of the air is becoming a major concern in urban areas. High values of particulate matter (PM) concentrations and various pollutants may be very dangerous for human health and the global environment. The challenge to overcome the problem with the air quality includes efforts to improve healthy air not only by reducing emissions, but also by modifying the urban morphology to reduce the exposure of the population to air pollution.The aim of this contribution is to analyse the influence of the green zones on air quality mitigation through sensor measurements, and to identify the correlation with the meteorological factors. Actually, the objective focuses on identifying the most significant correlation between PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations and the wind speed, as well as a negative correlation between the PM concentrations and wind speed across different measurement locations. Additionally, the estimation of slight correlation between the PM concentrations and the real feel temperature is detected, while insignificant correlations are found between the PM concentrations and the actual temperature, pressure, and humidity.In this paper the effect of the pandemic restriction rules COVID-19 lockdowns and the period without restriction are investigated. The sensor data collected before the pandemic (summer months in 2018), during the global pandemic (summer months 2020), and after the period with restriction measures (2022) are analysed

Reduction of air pollution through an alternative system of waste collection: The introduction of an underground waste container system

Gläser S, Stücken M. Reduction of air pollution through an alternative system of waste collection: The introduction of an underground waste container system. In: Ban M, Duic N, Schneider DR, et al., eds. Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems . Zagreb: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Zagreb ; 2020.Air pollution is a substantial environmental health risk in Europe. The municipal activity of waste collection contributes to air pollution. When collecting household waste via a door-to-door collection system the collection vehicles drive down all streets to empty the bins on the curb. In this paper we therefore deal with the question of whether the introduction of an underground waste container system, in which waste would be collected at central locations in so-called underground waste containers with a much larger capacity, is a sensible alternative that leads to less traffic and therefore less air pollution. We compare the costs of the two systems using two different optimization problems. On the basis of extended, artificial instances from the literature, we show the great potential for cost reduction of an underground waste collection system in comparison to a door-to-door collection system. The distances to be covered by the refuse collection vehicles can be significantly reduced, which is particularly important in times of air pollution

Smart municipal energy grid within electricity market

A smart municipal energy grid including electricity and heat production infrastructure and electricity demand response has been modeled in HOMER case study with the aim of decreasing total yearly community energy costs. The optimal configurations of used technologies (photovoltaic plants, combined heat and power plants, wind power plants) and sizing, with minimal costs, are presented and compared using three scenarios of average electricity market price 3.5 c€/kWh, 5 c€/kWh and 10 c€/kWh. Smart municipal energy grids will have an important role in future electricity markets, due to their flexibility to utilize excess electricity production from CHP and variable renewable energy sources through heat storage. This flexibility enables the levelized costs of energy within smart municipal energy grids to decrease below electricity market prices even in case of fuel price disturbances. With initial costs in the range 0- 3,931,882 €, it has been shown that economical and environmental benefits of smart municipal energy grids are: the internal rate of return in the range 6.87-15.3%, and CO2 emissions in the range from -4,885,203 to 5,165,780 kg/year. The resulting realistic number of hours of operation of combined heat and power plants obtained by simulations is in the range 2,410- 7,849 hours/year.This is the peer-reviewed version of the article: Batas-Bjelic, I., Rajakovic, N., Duic, N., 2017. Smart municipal energy grid within electricity market. Energy 137, 1277–1285. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.06.177