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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A1: Smart Grids and Microgrids".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2021) | Viewed by 34790

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Dr. Herodotos Herodotou

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Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Informatics, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol 3036, Cyprus
Interests: smart grids; data analytics; data-intensive computing; data processing systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microgrids have recently emerged as the building blocks of smart grids, combining distributed renewable energy sources, energy storage devices, and load management to improve power system reliability, enhance sustainable development, and reduce carbon emissions. At the same time, rapid advancements in sensor and metering technologies, wireless, and network communication, as well as cloud and fog computing, are leading to the collection and accumulation of large amounts of data (e.g., device status data, energy generation data, and consumption data).

The application of big data analysis techniques (e.g., forecasting, classification, and clustering) to such data can optimize power generation and operation in real-time by accurately predicting electricity demands, discovering electricity consumption patterns, and developing dynamic pricing mechanisms. The efficient and intelligent analysis of the data will enable smart microgrids to detect and restore from failures quickly, respond to electricity demand swiftly, supply more reliable and economical energy, and enable customers to have more control over their energy use. Overall, data-intensive analytics can provide effective and efficient decision support for all of the producers, operators, customers, and regulators in smart microgrids to achieve holistic smart energy management, including energy generation, transmission, distribution, and demand-side management.

We are inviting submissions of relevant original research articles or comprehensive reviews to Special Issue of Energies on “Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids”. The topics of the Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

Energy data-intensive analytics in smart microgrids
Data-driven management and control of smart microgrids
Big data management in smart grids and microgrids
Cloud and fog computing in smart microgrids operations and management
Applications of network science in modeling and the analysis of smart microgrids
Data-driven dynamic pricing mechanisms and strategies in smart grids
Intelligent decision-making in smart microgrids
Demand-side management in smart microgrids
Energy load/demand forecasting for residential, commercial, and/or industrial consumers
Electricity price forecasting for residential, commercial, and/or industrial consumers
Power forecasting from renewable energy resources (e.g., solar, wind)
Management of data for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in smart grids
Data-driven renewable energy integration in smart grids
Blockchain integration in smart grid and microgrids

Assist. Prof. Dr. Herodotos Herodotou
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Smart grid
Smart microgrids
Renewable energy
Energy analytics
Data-driven management
Dynamic electricity pricing
Energy load forecasting
Electricity demand forecasting
Advanced metering infrastructure
Blockchain in smart grid/microgrids

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research, Review

3 pages, 151 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Introduction to the Special Issue on Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids

by Herodotos Herodotou

Energies 2021, 14(9), 2704; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14092704 - 09 May 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1426

Abstract

Microgrids have recently emerged as the building block of a smart grid combining distributed renewable energy sources, energy storage devices, and load management in order to improve power system reliability, enhance sustainable development, and reduce carbon emissions [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Review

29 pages, 772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Optimization Based Power Usage Scheduling Strategy Using Photovoltaic-Battery System for Demand-Side Management in Smart Grid

by Sajjad Ali, Imran Khan, Sadaqat Jan and Ghulam Hafeez

Energies 2021, 14(8), 2201; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082201 - 15 Apr 2021

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 3105

Abstract

Due to rapid population growth, technology, and economic development, electricity demand is rising, causing a gap between energy production and demand. With the emergence of the smart grid, residents can schedule their energy usage in response to the Demand Response (DR) program offered by a utility company to cope with the gap between demand and supply. This work first proposes a novel optimization-based energy management framework that adapts consumer power usage patterns using real-time pricing signals and generation from utility and photovoltaic-battery systems to minimize electricity cost, to reduce carbon emission, and to mitigate peak power consumption subjected to alleviating rebound peak generation. Secondly, a Hybrid Genetic Ant Colony Optimization (HGACO) algorithm is proposed to solve the complete scheduling model for three scenarios: without photovoltaic-battery systems, with photovoltaic systems, and with photovoltaic-battery systems. Thirdly, rebound peak generation is restricted by using Multiple Knapsack Problem (MKP) in the proposed algorithm. The presented model reduces the cost of using electricity, alleviates the peak load and peak-valley, mitigates carbon emission, and avoids rebound peaks without posing high discomfort to the consumers. To evaluate the applicability of the proposed framework comparatively with existing frameworks, simulations are conducted. The results show that the proposed HGACO algorithm reduced electricity cost, carbon emission, and peak load by 49.51%, 48.01%, and 25.72% in scenario I; by 55.85%, 54.22%, and 21.69% in scenario II, and by 59.06%, 57.42%, and 17.40% in scenario III, respectively, compared to without scheduling. Thus, the proposed HGACO algorithm-based energy management framework outperforms existing frameworks based on Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, Genetic Algorithm (GA), Hybrid Genetic Particle swarm Optimization (HGPO) algorithm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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17 pages, 455 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Optimal Energy Optimization Strategy for Smart Grid Integrated with Renewable Energy Sources and Demand Response Programs

by Kalim Ullah, Sajjad Ali, Taimoor Ahmad Khan, Imran Khan, Sadaqat Jan, Ibrar Ali Shah and Ghulam Hafeez

Energies 2020, 13(21), 5718; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13215718 - 02 Nov 2020

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 2817

Abstract

An energy optimization strategy is proposed to minimize operation cost and carbon emission with and without demand response programs (DRPs) in the smart grid (SG) integrated with renewable energy sources (RESs). To achieve optimized results, probability density function (PDF) is proposed to predict the behavior of wind and solar energy sources. To overcome uncertainty in power produced by wind and solar RESs, DRPs are proposed with the involvement of residential, commercial, and industrial consumers. In this model, to execute DRPs, we introduced incentive-based payment as price offered packages. Simulations are divided into three steps for optimization of operation cost and carbon emission: (i) solving optimization problem using multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), (ii) optimization of operating cost and carbon emission without DRPs, and (iii) optimization of operating cost and carbon emission with DRPs. To endorse the applicability of the proposed optimization model based on MOGA, a smart sample grid is employed serving residential, commercial, and industrial consumers. In addition, the proposed optimization model based on MOGA is compared to the existing model based on multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm in terms of operation cost and carbon emission. The proposed optimization model based on MOGA outperforms the existing model based on the MOPSO algorithm in terms of operation cost and carbon emission. Experimental results show that the operation cost and carbon emission are reduced by 24% and 28% through MOGA with and without the participation of DRPs, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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25 pages, 733 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Time and Cost Efficient Cloud Resource Allocation for Real-Time Data-Intensive Smart Systems

by Muhammad Shuaib Qureshi, Muhammad Bilal Qureshi, Muhammad Fayaz, Muhammad Zakarya, Sheraz Aslam and Asadullah Shah

Energies 2020, 13(21), 5706; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13215706 - 31 Oct 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2516

Abstract

Cloud computing is the de facto platform for deploying resource- and data-intensive real-time applications due to the collaboration of large scale resources operating in cross-administrative domains. For example, real-time systems are generated by smart devices (e.g., sensors in smart homes that monitor surroundings in real-time, security cameras that produce video streams in real-time, cloud gaming, social media streams, etc.). Such low-end devices form a microgrid which has low computational and storage capacity and hence offload data unto the cloud for processing. Cloud computing still lacks mature time-oriented scheduling and resource allocation strategies which thoroughly deliberate stringent

Q o S

. Traditional approaches are sufficient only when applications have real-time and data constraints, and cloud storage resources are located with computational resources where the data are locally available for task execution. Such approaches mainly focus on resource provision and latency, and are prone to missing deadlines during tasks execution due to the urgency of the tasks and limited user budget constraints. The timing and data requirements exacerbate the efficient task scheduling and resource allocation problems. To cope with the aforementioned gaps, we propose a time- and cost-efficient resource allocation strategy for smart systems that periodically offload computational and data-intensive load to the cloud. The proposed strategy minimizes the data files transfer overhead to computing resources by selecting appropriate pairs of computing and storage resources. The celebrated results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in terms of resource selection and tasks processing within time and budget constraints when compared with the other counterparts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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24 pages, 6236 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Combined Deep Learning and Ensemble Learning Methodology to Avoid Electricity Theft in Smart Grids

by Zeeshan Aslam, Nadeem Javaid, Ashfaq Ahmad, Abrar Ahmed and Sardar Muhammad Gulfam

Energies 2020, 13(21), 5599; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13215599 - 26 Oct 2020

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 3914

Abstract

Electricity is widely used around 80% of the world. Electricity theft has dangerous effects on utilities in terms of power efficiency and costs billions of dollars per annum. The enhancement of the traditional grids gave rise to smart grids that enable one to resolve the dilemma of electricity theft detection (ETD) using an extensive amount of data formulated by smart meters. This data are used by power utilities to examine the consumption behaviors of consumers and to decide whether the consumer is an electricity thief or benign. However, the traditional data-driven methods for ETD have poor detection performances due to the high-dimensional imbalanced data and their limited ETD capability. In this paper, we present a new class balancing mechanism based on the interquartile minority oversampling technique and a combined ETD model to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches. The combined ETD model is composed of long short-term memory (LSTM), UNet and adaptive boosting (Adaboost), and termed LSTM–UNet–Adaboost. In this regard, LSTM–UNet–Adaboost combines the advantages of deep learning (LSTM-UNet) along with ensemble learning (Adaboost) for ETD. Moreover, the performance of the proposed LSTM–UNet–Adaboost scheme was simulated and evaluated over the real-time smart meter dataset given by the State Grid Corporation of China. The simulations were conducted using the most appropriate performance indicators, such as area under the curve, precision, recall and F1 measure. The proposed solution obtained the highest results as compared to the existing benchmark schemes in terms of selected performance measures. More specifically, it achieved the detection rate of 0.92, which was the highest among existing benchmark schemes, such as logistic regression, support vector machine and random under-sampling boosting technique. Therefore, the simulation outcomes validate that the proposed LSTM–UNet–Adaboost model surpasses other traditional methods in terms of ETD and is more acceptable for real-time practices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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21 pages, 2052 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Big Data Analytics for Short and Medium-Term Electricity Load Forecasting Using an AI Techniques Ensembler

by Nasir Ayub, Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Awais, Usman Ali, Tariq Ali, Mohammed Hamdi, Abdullah Alghamdi and Fazal Muhammad

Energies 2020, 13(19), 5193; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13195193 - 05 Oct 2020

Cited by 30 | Viewed by 3557

Abstract

Electrical load forecasting provides knowledge about future consumption and generation of electricity. There is a high level of fluctuation behavior between energy generation and consumption. Sometimes, the energy demand of the consumer becomes higher than the energy already generated, and vice versa. Electricity load forecasting provides a monitoring framework for future energy generation, consumption, and making a balance between them. In this paper, we propose a framework, in which deep learning and supervised machine learning techniques are implemented for electricity-load forecasting. A three-step model is proposed, which includes: feature selection, extraction, and classification. The hybrid of Random Forest (RF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) is used to calculate features’ importance. The average feature importance of hybrid techniques selects the most relevant and high importance features in the feature selection method. The Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) method is used to eliminate the irrelevant features in the feature extraction method. The load forecasting is performed with Support Vector Machines (SVM) and a hybrid of Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). The meta-heuristic algorithms, i.e., Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) and Earth Worm Optimization (EWO) are applied to tune the hyper-parameters of SVM and CNN-GRU, respectively. The accuracy of our enhanced techniques CNN-GRU-EWO and SVM-GWO is 96.33% and 90.67%, respectively. Our proposed techniques CNN-GRU-EWO and SVM-GWO perform 7% and 3% better than the State-Of-The-Art (SOTA). In the end, a comparison with SOTA techniques is performed to show the improvement of the proposed techniques. This comparison showed that the proposed technique performs well and results in the lowest performance error rates and highest accuracy rates as compared to other techniques. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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23 pages, 592 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cost Efficient Real Time Electricity Management Services for Green Community Using Fog

by Rasool Bukhsh, Muhammad Umar Javed, Aisha Fatima, Nadeem Javaid, Muhammad Shafiq and Jin-Ghoo Choi

Energies 2020, 13(12), 3164; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13123164 - 18 Jun 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2392

Abstract

The computing devices in data centers of cloud and fog remain in continues running cycle to provide services. The long execution state of large number of computing devices consumes a significant amount of power, which emits an equivalent amount of heat in the environment. The performance of the devices is compromised in heating environment. The high powered cooling systems are installed to cool the data centers. Accordingly, data centers demand high electricity for computing devices and cooling systems. Moreover, in Smart Grid (SG) managing energy consumption to reduce the electricity cost for consumers and minimum rely on fossil fuel based power supply (utility) is an interesting domain for researchers. The SG applications are time-sensitive. In this paper, fog based model is proposed for a community to ensure real-time energy management service provision. Three scenarios are implemented to analyze cost efficient energy management for power-users. In first scenario, community’s and fog’s power demand is fulfilled from the utility. In second scenario, community’s Renewable Energy Resources (RES) based Microgrid (MG) is integrated with the utility to meet the demand. In third scenario, the demand is fulfilled by integrating fog’s MG, community’s MG and the utility. In the scenarios, the energy demand of fog is evaluated with proposed mechanism. The required amount of energy to run computing devices against number of requests and amount of power require cooling down the devices are calculated to find energy demand by fog’s data center. The simulations of case studies show that the energy cost to meet the demand of the community and fog’s data center in third scenario is 15.09% and 1.2% more efficient as compared to first and second scenarios, respectively. In this paper, an energy contract is also proposed that ensures the participation of all power generating stakeholders. The results advocate the cost efficiency of proposed contract as compared to third scenario. The integration of RES reduce the energy cost and reduce emission of CO

_{2}

. The simulations for energy management and plots of results are performed in Matlab. The simulation for fog’s resource management, measuring processing, and response time are performed in CloudAnalyst. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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20 pages, 894 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Investigation of Deterministic, Statistical and Parametric NB-PLC Channel Modeling Techniques for Advanced Metering Infrastructure

by Bilal Masood, M. Arif Khan, Sobia Baig, Guobing Song, Ateeq Ur Rehman, Saif Ur Rehman, Rao M. Asif and Muhammad Babar Rasheed

Energies 2020, 13(12), 3098; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13123098 - 15 Jun 2020

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3231

Abstract

This paper is focused on the channel modeling techniques for implementation of narrowband power line communication (NB-PLC) over medium voltage (MV) network for the purpose of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Three different types of models, based on deterministic method, statistical method, and network parameters based method are investigated in detail. Transmission line (TL) theory model is used to express the MV network as a two-port network to examine characteristics of sending and receiving NB-PLC signals. Multipath signal propagation model is used to incorporate the effect of multipath signals to determine the NB-PLC transfer function. A Simulink model is proposed which considers the values of MV network to examine the characteristics of NB-PLC signals. Frequency selectivity is also introduced in the impedances to compare variations and characteristics with constant impedances based MV network. A state-of-the-art mechanism for the modeling of capacitive coupling device, and impedances of low voltage (LV) and MV networks is developed. Moreover, a comparative analysis of TL theory and multipath signal propagation models with the proposed Simulink model is presented to validate the performance and accuracy of proposed model. This research work will pave the way to improve the efficiency of next-generation NB-PLC technologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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17 pages, 855 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Towards Short Term Electricity Load Forecasting Using Improved Support Vector Machine and Extreme Learning Machine

by Waqas Ahmad, Nasir Ayub, Tariq Ali, Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Awais, Muhammad Shiraz and Adam Glowacz

Energies 2020, 13(11), 2907; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13112907 - 05 Jun 2020

Cited by 66 | Viewed by 4426

Abstract

Forecasting the electricity load provides its future trends, consumption patterns and its usage. There is no proper strategy to monitor the energy consumption and generation; and high variation among them. Many strategies are used to overcome this problem. The correct selection of parameter values of a classifier is still an issue. Therefore, an optimization algorithm is applied with deep learning and machine learning techniques to select the optimized values for the classifier’s hyperparameters. In this paper, a novel deep learning-based method is implemented for electricity load forecasting. A three-step model is also implemented, including feature selection using a hybrid feature selector (XGboost and decision tee), redundancy removal using feature extraction technique (Recursive Feature Elimination) and classification/forecasting using improved Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM). The hyperparameters of ELM are tuned with a meta-heuristic algorithm, i.e., Genetic Algorithm (GA) and hyperparameters of SVM are tuned with the Grid Search Algorithm. The simulation results are shown in graphs and the values are shown in tabular form and they clearly show that our improved methods outperform State Of The Art (SOTA) methods in terms of accuracy and performance. The forecasting accuracy of Extreme Learning Machine based Genetic Algo (ELM-GA) and Support Vector Machine based Grid Search (SVM-GS) is 96.3% and 93.25%, respectively. The accuracy of our improved techniques, i.e., ELM-GA and SVM-GS is 10% and 7%, respectively, higher than the SOTA techniques. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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Review

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43 pages, 1815 KiB

Open AccessReview

Automatic Generation Control Strategies in Conventional and Modern Power Systems: A Comprehensive Overview

by Kaleem Ullah, Abdul Basit, Zahid Ullah, Sheraz Aslam and Herodotos Herodotou

Energies 2021, 14(9), 2376; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14092376 - 22 Apr 2021

Cited by 52 | Viewed by 6210

Abstract

Automatic generation control (AGC) is primarily responsible for ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of an electric power system. The main goal of AGC is to keep the operating frequency under prescribed limits and maintain the interchange power at the intended level. Therefore, an AGC system must be supplemented with modern and intelligent control techniques to provide adequate power supply. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of various AGC models in diverse configurations of the power system. Initially, the history of power system AGC models is explored and the basic operation of AGC in a multi-area interconnected power system is presented. An in-depth analysis of various control methods used to mitigate the AGC issues is provided. Application of fast-acting energy storage devices, high voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnections, and flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) devices in the AGC systems are investigated. Furthermore, AGC systems employed in different renewable energy generation systems are overviewed and are summarized in tabulated form. AGC techniques in different configurations of microgrid and smart grid are also presented in detail. A thorough overview of various AGC issues in a deregulated power system is provided by considering the different contract scenarios. Moreover, AGC systems with an additional objective of economic dispatch is investigated and an overview of worldwide AGC practices is provided. Finally, the paper concludes with an emphasis on the prospective study in the field of AGC. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids)

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