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Energies
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Real-time Communications for Smart Grids and Industry
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Real-time Communications for Smart Grids and Industry

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 (30 September 2019) | Viewed by 19013

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Alessandra Flammini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia, 25121 Brescia, Italy
Interests: design of methods and digital electronic circuits for numeric measurement instrumentation; sensor signal processing; smart sensors and wireless sensor networking; smart grids and smart living
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Paolo Ferrari

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
UNIBS-DIE, Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Interests: sensor network; distributed measurement systems; industrial communication; real-time ethernet; clock synchronization; industrial IoT; industrial security; wireless sensors; smart city
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Emiliano Sisinni

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia, 42301-3023 Brescia, Italy
Interests: sensor signal processing; industrial communications; wireless and sensor networks; ubiquitous and mobile computing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The ever-evolving field of communication technologies deeply impacts all aspects of human society, from every-day life (just think about how personal relations have been modified by the introduction of the telephone) through transportation, logistics, communications, and information systems. Recently, the increasing use of micro power plants from distributed renewable sources has made energy production unpredictable, requiring innovative communication solutions. On the other hand, the recent availability of Real-Time Ethernet at the field level of factories, allows new scenarios in terms of services as prognostics or tolerance reduction. The timely knowledge of the status of the grid or of an industrial plant implies the ease use of a synchronized and real-time communication system. Modeling of a grid or of a production plant is a very complex task, although the availability of affordable and reliable embedded computing systems, which have become pervasive, is leading to the concept of cyber physical systems where any device (from the simplest to the most complex) can have its own counterpart in the digital domain, i.e., a so-called digital twin. However, distributed computing devices must cope with the temporal dynamics of the surrounding environment and typically must satisfy real-time requirements. Additionally, the adoption of wireless solutions, which ensure flexibility and scalability, poses additional needs (e.g., related to long enough lifetime). This Special Issue aims at collecting the latest research addressing the challenges of real-time communications. Possible areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Case studies and experiences of real-time applications on wireless and wired networks for industry and smart-grids
  • Real-time operating systems, middleware, and data services for wireless and wired sensor networks for industry and smart-grids
  • Real-time and QoS-aware wireless and wired network protocols for industry and smart-grids
  • Programming models and tools for real-time applications of wireless and wired networks for industry and smart-grids
  • Analysis of timing properties and performance bounds of wireless and wired networks for industry and smart-grids

Prof. Dr. Alessandra Flammini
Prof. Dr. Paolo Ferrari
Prof. Dr. Emiliano Sisinni
Guest Editors

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

  • real-time communications 
  • synchronization 
  • performance of ICT infrastructure for smart grids and industry 
  • real-time applications for smart grids and industry

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 11262 KiB  
Article
DAG-Based Distributed Ledger for Low-Latency Smart Grid Network
by Seongjoon Park and Hwangnam Kim
Energies 2019, 12(18), 3570; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183570 - 18 Sep 2019
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 4805
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a scheme that implements a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based on Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) to generate, validate, and confirm the electricity transaction in Smart Grid. The convergence of the Smart Grid and distributed ledger concept has recently [...] Read more.
In this paper, we propose a scheme that implements a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based on Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) to generate, validate, and confirm the electricity transaction in Smart Grid. The convergence of the Smart Grid and distributed ledger concept has recently been introduced. Since Smart Grids require a distributed network architecture for power distribution and trading, the Distributed Ledger-based Smart Grid design is a spotlighted research domain. However, only the Blockchain-based methods, which are a type of the distributed ledger scheme, are currently either being considered or adopted in the Smart Grid. Due to computation-intensive consensus schemes such as Proof-of-Work and discrete block generation, Blockchain-based distributed ledger systems suffer from efficiency and latency issues. We propose a DAG-based distributed ledger for Smart Grids, called PowerGraph, to resolve this problem. Since a DAG-based distributed ledger does not need to generate blocks for confirmation, each transaction of the PowerGraph undergoes the validation and confirmation process individually. In addition, transactions in PowerGraph are used to keep track of the energy trade and include various types of transactions so that they can fully encompass the events in the Smart Grid network. Finally, to ensure that PowerGraph maintains a high performance, we modeled the PowerGraph performance and proposed a novel consensus algorithm that would result in the rapid confirmation of transactions. We use numerical evaluations to show that PowerGraph can accelerate the transaction processing speed by over 5 times compared to existing DAG-based DLT system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Real-time Communications for Smart Grids and Industry)
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16 pages, 2101 KiB  
Article
Solution for Voltage and Frequency Regulation in Standalone Microgrid using Hybrid Multiobjective Symbiotic Organism Search Algorithm
by Yuvaraja Teekaraman, Ramya Kuppusamy and Srete Nikolovski
Energies 2019, 12(14), 2812; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12142812 - 22 Jul 2019
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 4647
Abstract
Voltage and frequency regulation is one of the greatest challenges for proper operation subsequent to the isolated microgrid. To validate the satisfactory electric power quality supply to customers, the proposed manuscript tries to enhance the quality of energy provided by DG (Distributed generation) [...] Read more.
Voltage and frequency regulation is one of the greatest challenges for proper operation subsequent to the isolated microgrid. To validate the satisfactory electric power quality supply to customers, the proposed manuscript tries to enhance the quality of energy provided by DG (Distributed generation) units connected to the subsequent isolated grid. Microgrid and simulation-based control structure including voltage and current control feedback loops is proposed for microgrid inverters to recover voltage and frequency of the system subsequently for any fluctuations in load change. The proportional-integral (PI) controller connected to the voltage controller is an end goal to obtain smooth response in most of the consistent frameworks. The present controller creates the space vector pulse width modulation signals which are given to the three-leg inverter. The objective elements of the multiobjective optimization issue are voltage overshoot and undershoot, rise time, settling time, and integral time absolute error (ITAE). The hybrid Multiobjective Symbiotic Organism Search (MOSOS) calculation is associated for self-tuning of control parameters keeping in mind the end goal to deal with the voltage and frequency. The proposed PI controller, along with the hybrid Multiobjective Symbiotic Organism Search algorithm, provides the solution for the greatest challenge of voltage and frequency regulation in an isolated-microgrid operation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Real-time Communications for Smart Grids and Industry)
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23 pages, 6574 KiB  
Article
A New Coupling Solution for G3-PLC Employment in MV Smart Grids
by Giovanni Artale, Antonio Cataliotti, Valentina Cosentino, Dario Di Cara, Riccardo Fiorelli, Salvatore Guaiana, Nicola Panzavecchia and Giovanni Tinè
Energies 2019, 12(13), 2474; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12132474 - 27 Jun 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3225
Abstract
This paper proposes a new coupling solution for transmitting narrowband multicarrier power line communication (PLC) signals over medium voltage (MV) power lines. The proposed system is based on an innovative PLC coupling principle, patented by the authors, which exploits the capacitive divider embedded [...] Read more.
This paper proposes a new coupling solution for transmitting narrowband multicarrier power line communication (PLC) signals over medium voltage (MV) power lines. The proposed system is based on an innovative PLC coupling principle, patented by the authors, which exploits the capacitive divider embedded in voltage detecting systems (VDS) already installed inside the MV switchboard. Thus, no dedicated couplers have to be installed and no switchboard modifications or energy interruptions are needed. This allows a significant cost reduction of MV PLC implementation. A first prototype of the proposed coupling system was presented in previous papers: it had a 15 kHz bandwidth useful to couple single carrier PSK modulated PLC signals with a center frequency from 50–200 kHz. In this paper, a new prototype is developed with a larger bandwidth, up to 164 kHz, thus allowing to couple multicarrier G3-PLC signals using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) digital modulation. This modulation ensures a more robust communication even in harsh power line channels. In the paper, the new coupling system design is described in detail. A new procedure is presented for tuning the coupling system parameters at first installation in a generic MV switchboard. Finally, laboratory and in-field experimental test results are reported and discussed. The coupling performances are evaluated measuring the throughput and success rate in the case of both 18 and 36 subcarriers, in one of the different tone masks standardized for the FCC-above CENELEC band (that is, from 154.6875–487.5 kHz). The experimental results show an efficient behavior of the proposed coupler allowing a two-way communication of G3-PLC OFDM signals on MV networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Real-time Communications for Smart Grids and Industry)
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21 pages, 2070 KiB  
Article
Real-Time Analysis of Time-Critical Messages in IEC 61850 Electrical Substation Communication Systems
by Héctor León, Carlos Montez, Odilson Valle and Francisco Vasques
Energies 2019, 12(12), 2272; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12122272 - 13 Jun 2019
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 5782
Abstract
IEC 61850 is a standard for the design and operation of electrical Substation Automation Systems (SAS) that defines how data may be transferred among Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs). The defined data models can be mapped into application protocols, such as SV or GOOSE, [...] Read more.
IEC 61850 is a standard for the design and operation of electrical Substation Automation Systems (SAS) that defines how data may be transferred among Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs). The defined data models can be mapped into application protocols, such as SV or GOOSE, which may run upon high speed Ethernet LANs bridged by IEEE 802.1Q compliant switches. The communication system must cope with the timing requirements associated to protective relaying strategies. Given the time constrained nature of SAS applications, a thorough analysis of its timing behavior is required. In this paper, we propose an analytical model for the timing assessment of SV and GOOSE message exchanges in an IEC 61850 process bus. The proposed model allows the communication timing assessment, by analyzing the response time of each message stream of the SAS. This feature is an advantage for the expansion of the SAS, as it allows the evaluation at design time of the maximum number of IEDs that can be supported by the underlying communication system. The results from the proposed analytical model were validated for a typical IEC 61850 communication scenario, both through simulation and through an experimental assessment with IEC 61850 compliant equipment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Real-time Communications for Smart Grids and Industry)
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