Smart Grid for the Smart City

Abstract

Modern cities are becoming more and more dependent on the reliability and efficiency of the electrical distribution infrastructure. In the past few years, a great effort has been devoted to the creation of an integrated infrastructure that combines a resilient power distribution system, distributed generation devices based on renewables (as, for example, photovoltaic panels and wind turbines), a reliable and secure communication system, and real-time energy pricing policies. The resulting infrastructure is called smart grid and constitutes the backbone of the smart city. As noted in [22], "The smart city is all about how the city "organism" works together as an integrated whole and survives when put under extreme conditions" and, moreover: "the energy infrastructure is arguably the single most important feature in any city. If unavailable for a significant enough period of time, all other functions will eventually cease." Hence, developing and implementing a fully functional smart grid infrastructure is a priority for future smart cities.In order to implement a smart grid, at least the following three technical domains must cooperate, namely: (i) power electronics, (ii) information and communication technology (ICT), and (iii) economics.From a power electronics standpoint, the diffusion of distributed energy resources (DERs) poses a number of interesting challenges that the future power distribution grid must face to evolve into a smart power distribution grid. On the one hand, the presence of grid connected DERs (i.e., DC power generators connected to the main power distribution system through grid-tie inverters or capacitor banks) must be carefully handled to maintain acceptable electrical power quality. In particular, voltage sags (overvoltages) due to the switch off (on) of groups of DERs must be avoided. Moreover, harmonic distortion must be minimized, since it is one of the major factors degrading the overall power quality [18]. On the other hand, if the presence

Elderly monitoring system in a smart city environment using LoRa and MQTT

“…Demographic growth and urbanisation are creating a desire to integrate technology into the design of urban services, culminating in the idea of ‘smart cities’. This new tendency has resulted in the application of information and communication technologies for the purpose of maintaining urban support, versatile for the persistence of large communities, involving transportation [1], energy systems [2], criminality sources [3] and smart health [4].…”

Process Map of a Unified Data Platform for Operational Intelligence and Analysis of Power Sector

“…Thus, we require such a Platform to store this vast distributed data and to perform all these types of analysis. The factors, constraints and interfaces for implementing a Unified Data Platform for Operational Intelligence and Analysis of the Power Sector was studied and published in author's paper [1].…”

“…With smartgrid or Unified Data Platform all these data have to come on a common platform. The smartgrid will be instrumental in the integration of the smart-living concept by applying the smart energy systems to interconnect utilities with the end-users by means of a smart data infrastructure [1], [3], [4]. On one hand the volume, the variety, the variability, the velocity of heterogeneous data collected from these sensors have all added to the complexity; and on the other hand the availability of low cost storage and processing devices, has made it possible to process data at small time buckets for better analysis.…”

Smart Grids Data Analysis: A Systematic Mapping Study

“…T HE Smart Grid (SG) is a two-way cyber-physical system utilizing information to provide safe, secure, reliable, resilient, efficient, and sustainable electricity to end-users [280], [288]. The SG plays nowadays a major role in the integration of the Smart Cities concept by putting into effect the Smart Energy conceptual element: smart electrical energy systems that interconnect utilities and end-users by means of a Smart Infrastructure [276], [287], [292]. The SG is a key enabler, enhancing the decision making process, providing self-healing and automation of the energy grid, and integration of renewable energy sources [292].…”