Smart Grids and Internet of Things with Special Emphasis on Demand Response

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Power Electronics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 12060

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Networks and Computer Science Department, Telecom ParisTech, 19 place Marguerite Perey, F-91120 Palaiseau, France
Interests: smart grids; demand side management; Internet of Things with special emphasis on demand response

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Guest Editor
Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory école Polytechnique Route de Saclay, s/n · 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France
Interests: solar radiation; solar energy forecasting; wind energy forecasting; microgrids; smart grids

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Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science école Polytechnique Route de Saclay, s/n, 91128 Palaiseau CEDEX, France
Interests: wireless mesh; mobile ad hoc networking; routing protocols; Internet measurements; Internet of Things

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Internet of Things (IoT) plays a crucial role in the development of the smart grid concept. The deployment of communicating objects and systems such as sensors, actuators, smart meters, and energy management systems from the power generation to the consumption sites will increase the power system’s efficiency, reliability, and resiliency.

With the growing penetration of renewable energy sources into distribution systems, utilities are showing increasing interest in developing demand response (DR) programs to match power generation and demand more efficiently. Demand response offers consumers the opportunity to play an important role in the operation of the power grid by reducing or shifting their power consumption during peak periods in response to time-based pricing or financial incentives. On the one hand, advanced metering infrastructure expands the range of time-based DR programs that can be offered to consumers. On the other hand, smart devices such as smart appliances and energy management systems make it easier for consumers to modify their behavior and reduce their consumption during peak periods.

In this Special Issue, we want to focus on the role of the Internet of Things in smart grid applications, and in particular in the development of DR programs. This Special Issue seeks to gather researchers working in this area to share original research and provide their most recent innovative contributions.

Dr. Sawsan Al Zahr
Dr. Jordi Badosa
Dr. Juan-Antonio Cordero-Fuertes
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • demand response (DR)
  • smart grid
  • energy management system (EMS)
  • energy efficiency
  • energy saving
  • smart metering (SM)
  • distributed energy resources (DER)

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 3264 KiB  
Article
Energy Portal Design and Evaluation for Consumer Active Participation in Energy Services: Seven-Month Field Study with 234 Slovenian Households
by Ivana Milev, Lev Prislan and Matej Zajc
Electronics 2022, 11(21), 3452; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11213452 - 25 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1745
Abstract
The active participation of citizens is essential for the green transformation. Energy portals are playing an increasingly important role in actively engaging consumers in future energy services. This paper presents the development process of an energy portal as an innovative service for utility [...] Read more.
The active participation of citizens is essential for the green transformation. Energy portals are playing an increasingly important role in actively engaging consumers in future energy services. This paper presents the development process of an energy portal as an innovative service for utility customers. The portal was enriched with energy community features and integrated ambient feedback. The results provide insights from a seven-month field study in which 234 Slovenian households tested and evaluated the portal. The objectives of the study were to (1) analyze the consumer onboarding process, (2) evaluate consumers’ interaction with the portal over time, (3) examine the impact of communication outside the portal on activity in the portal, and (4) evaluate the portal by the consumers. The data show that consumers are willing to try new services: with a median response time of 9 days, 86% of the invited consumers registered on the portal and 95% visited the portal within 5 minutes of registration. The survey showed that the consumers are overall satisfied with the portal (rating 3.97/5). The experience and insights gained during the study and the iterative UI design process serve as a foundation for future demand reduction and energy community services. Full article
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15 pages, 2220 KiB  
Article
A Trustworthy Building Energy Management System to Enable Direct IoT Devices’ Participation in Demand Response Programs
by Nuno Teixeira, Ruben Barreto, Luis Gomes, Pedro Faria and Zita Vale
Electronics 2022, 11(6), 897; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11060897 - 14 Mar 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2255
Abstract
Nowadays, internet of things devices are becoming more prominent since they can integrate energy management systems. However, data sharing between end-users and other external entities is a concern that must be addressed to ensure data privacy. Given the above, this paper proposes a [...] Read more.
Nowadays, internet of things devices are becoming more prominent since they can integrate energy management systems. However, data sharing between end-users and other external entities is a concern that must be addressed to ensure data privacy. Given the above, this paper proposes a trustworthy energy management system for energy communities to enable direct internet of things devices’ participation in demand response programs at the community level. This solution is based on a building energy management system framework that considers signed tokens to maintain end-user data privacy and manage data access. Likewise, this solution can plan future demand response events to balance the consumption and generation, using the internet of things device’s flexibility. The results demonstrated that the planned demand response event for one hour efficiently balanced the energy community energy resources, enabling a reduction of approximately 2.8 kWh. Thus, the proposed solution allows safeguarding data ownership rights while efficiently managing energy resources. Full article
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13 pages, 1596 KiB  
Article
Optimization Approach for the Aggregation of Flexible Consumers
by Mohammad Dib, Rouwaida Abdallah and Omar Dib
Electronics 2022, 11(4), 628; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11040628 - 17 Feb 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1755
Abstract
In an electric distribution system, the management of peak demands is becoming increasingly difficult. Every method we have to flatten the consumption curve greatly reduces the energy generation costs, CO2 emissions, and congestion in the generation, transmission, and distribution systems. Therefore, we [...] Read more.
In an electric distribution system, the management of peak demands is becoming increasingly difficult. Every method we have to flatten the consumption curve greatly reduces the energy generation costs, CO2 emissions, and congestion in the generation, transmission, and distribution systems. Therefore, we can act on consumers’ consumption, especially when we know that some consumers can be interested in reducing their consumption levels for monetary compensations. This can be done by reporting a part of consumption or shifting it. For this, a new profession called aggregation is born to manage the flexible consumers and meet the network requirements. To maximize their revenues, aggregators need to own an intelligent system to manage their portfolio of flexible consumers. They should optimize the way they modify the load curve of their flexible assets by respecting the system requirements and a set of consumer constraints. In this article, we address this task by proposing a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation for two different modes: The economic mode (Evaluation of the potential of the portfolio to generate benefits. The aggregator uses this mode to make bids on the energy market) and the dispatch mode (to be used in an operational situation to respect the bids already submitted). Experimentation studies on real and random in-stances (>1000 instances) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MILP. Full article
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16 pages, 1033 KiB  
Article
Soft Load Shedding Based Demand Control of Residential Consumers
by Muhammad S. Gull, Nasir Mehmood, Huzaifa Rauf, Muhammad Khalid and Naveed Arshad
Electronics 2022, 11(4), 615; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11040615 - 16 Feb 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2897
Abstract
Power generation and consumption is an instantaneous process and maintaining the balance between demand and supply is crucial since the demand and supply mismatch leads to various risks like over-investment, over-generation, under-generation, and the collapse of the power system. Therefore, the reduction in [...] Read more.
Power generation and consumption is an instantaneous process and maintaining the balance between demand and supply is crucial since the demand and supply mismatch leads to various risks like over-investment, over-generation, under-generation, and the collapse of the power system. Therefore, the reduction in demand and supply mismatch is critical to ensure the safety and reliability of power system operation and economics. A typical and common approach, called full load shedding (FLS), is practiced in cases where electric power demand exceeds the available generation. FLS operation alleviates the power demand by cutting down the load for an entire area or region, which results in several challenges and problems for the utilities and consumers. In this study, a demand-side management (DSM) technique, called Soft-load shedding (SLS), is proposed, which uses data analytics and software-based architecture, and utilizes the real-world time-series energy consumption data available at one-minute granularity for a diversified group of residential consumers. The procedure is based on pattern identification extracted from the dataset and allocates a certain quota of power to be distributed on selected consumers such that the excessive demand is reduced, thereby minimizing the demand and supply mismatch. The results show that the proposed strategy obtains a significant reduction in the demand and supply mismatch such that the mismatch remains in the range of 10–15%, especially during the period where demand exceeds generation, operating within the utility constraints, and under the available generation, to avoid power system failure without affecting any lifeline consumer, with a minimum impact on the consumer’s comfort. Full article
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26 pages, 936 KiB  
Article
Global Sliding-Mode Control with Fractional-Order Terms for the Robust Optimal Operation of a Hybrid Renewable Microgrid with Battery Energy Storage
by Muhammad Maaruf and Muhammad Khalid
Electronics 2022, 11(1), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11010088 - 28 Dec 2021
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 2278
Abstract
The efficiency of hybrid microgrid systems is drastically affected by the number of power electronics converters interfacing with its components. Integrating distributed energy sources with microgrids with the optimal number of converters is crucial to minimizing the switching losses and power conversion stages, [...] Read more.
The efficiency of hybrid microgrid systems is drastically affected by the number of power electronics converters interfacing with its components. Integrating distributed energy sources with microgrids with the optimal number of converters is crucial to minimizing the switching losses and power conversion stages, thereby improving the efficiency of the systems. This paper considers an efficient and economical configuration for a wind/solar photovoltaic (PV) system integrated with a battery energy storage system (BES). The PV system is connected directly to the DC-link, thus lowering the losses and cost by eliminating the PV boost converter. In the literature, only a few publications have investigated this effective microgrid configuration. In addition, none of the publications have developed a nonlinear control approach for the microgrid configuration. Due to the greater flexibility of fractional calculus in speeding up the system response and improving the robustness, this article proposes a global sliding-mode control method with fractional-order terms (GSMCFO) to enhance the transient, steady-state, and robust operation of the hybrid microgrid. This controller provides the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of both the solar PV and wind power generators, regulates the DC-link voltage, ensures proper power transfer to the grid, and maintains the power balance. In addition, the GSMCFO guarantees the global stability of the hybrid microgrid. Furthermore, considering the simplicity, robustness, few control variables, and fast convergence rate of the differential evolution (DE) optimization method, it is utilized to optimize the performance of the GSMCFO. The proposed hybrid microgrid configuration under the action of the GSMCFO was simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK. Various scenarios were investigated to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme. The simulation results show that the GSMCFO can achieve superior dynamic performances than the proportional–integral (PI) controller with zero overshoot, a shorter settling time, and stronger robustness, thus improving the power balance of the hybrid microgrid. Full article
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