Present and Future of the Chilean Electrical Grid

During the last few decades, electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as a promising sustainable alternative to traditional fuel cars. The work presented here is carried out in the context of the Horizon 2020 project MERLON and targets the impact of EVs on electrical grid load profiles, while considering both grid-to-vehicle (G2V) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operation modes. Three different charging policies are considered: the uncontrolled charging, which acts as a reference scenario, and two strategies that fall under the umbrella of individual charging policies based on price incentive strategies. Electricity prices along with the EV user preferences are taken into account for both charging (G2V) and discharging (V2G) operations, allowing for more realistic scenarios to be considered.

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Model Predictive Control Strategies to Activate the Energy Flexibility for Zones with Hydronic Radiant Systems

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14041195 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 1195

Author(s):

Ali Saberi Derakhtenjani ◽

Andreas K. Athienitis

Keyword(s):

Control Strategies ◽

High Price ◽

Electricity Prices ◽

Peak Demand ◽

Heating Systems ◽

Electrical Grid ◽

Demand Reduction ◽

The Cost ◽

Floor System ◽

Radiant Floor Heating

This paper presents control strategies to activate energy flexibility for zones with radiant heating systems in response to changes in electricity prices. The focus is on zones with radiant floor heating systems for which the hydronic pipes are located deep in the concrete and, therefore, there is a significant thermal lag. A perimeter zone test-room equipped with a hydronic radiant floor system in an environmental chamber is used as a case study. A low order thermal network model for the perimeter zone, validated with experimental measurements, is utilized to study various control strategies in response to changes in the electrical grid price signal, including short term (nearly reactive) changes of the order of 10–15 min notice. An index is utilized to quantify the building energy flexibility with the focus on peak demand reduction for specific periods of time when the electricity prices are higher than usual. It is shown that the developed control strategies can aid greatly in enhancing the zone energy flexibility and minimizing the cost of electricity and up to 100% reduction in peak power demand and energy consumption is attained during the high-price and peak-demand periods, while maintaining acceptable comfort conditions.

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A Possible Smart Metering System Evolution for Rural and Remote Areas Employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Internet of Things in Smart Grids

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21051627 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (5) ◽

pp. 1627

Author(s):

Giovanni Battista Gaggero ◽

Mario Marchese ◽

Aya Moheddine ◽

Fabio Patrone

Keyword(s):

Energy Consumption ◽

Internet Of Things ◽

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽

Smart Metering ◽

Rural And Remote ◽

Electrical Grid ◽

Remote Areas ◽

Aerial Vehicles ◽

Consumption Data ◽

Rural And Remote Areas

The way of generating and distributing energy throughout the electrical grid to all users is evolving. The concept of Smart Grid (SG) took place to enhance the management of the electrical grid infrastructure and its functionalities from the traditional system to an improved one. To measure the energy consumption of the users is one of these functionalities that, in some countries, has already evolved from a periodical manual consumption reading to a more frequent and automatic one, leading to the concept of Smart Metering (SM). Technology improvement could be applied to the SM systems to allow, on one hand, a more efficient way to collect the energy consumption data of each user, and, on the other hand, a better distribution of the available energy through the infrastructure. Widespread communication solutions based on existing telecommunication infrastructures instead of using ad-hoc ones can be exploited for this purpose. In this paper, we recall the basic elements and the evolution of the SM network architecture focusing on how it could further improve in the near future. We report the main technologies and protocols which can be exploited for the data exchange throughout the infrastructure and the pros and cons of each solution. Finally, we propose an innovative solution as a possible evolution of the SM system. This solution is based on a set of Internet of Things (IoT) communication technologies called Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) which could be employed to improve the performance of the currently used technologies and provide additional functionalities. We also propose the employment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to periodically collect energy consumption data, with evident advantages especially if employed in rural and remote areas. We show some preliminary performance results which allow assessing the feasibility of the proposed approach.

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Mitigating natural events to avoid disaster in public school buildings: seismic retrofitting of SDN 42 Korong Gadang

MATEC Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/matecconf/201822902021 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 229 ◽

pp. 02021

Author(s):

James Mwangi ◽

Laura Putri ◽

Listhbeth Collins

Keyword(s):

School Facilities ◽

Seismic Retrofitting ◽

Building Structures ◽

National Agency ◽

Electrical Grid ◽

The North ◽

Australian Plate ◽

West Sumatra

With over 50 million students, Indonesia has the fourth largest education system in the world. The first twelve years of education are compulsory for all citizens. The students, together with over 3 million teachers spend six (or five in some cases) days a week at over 300,000 schools, typically from 6:30 AM to 2 (or 3) PM. Geographically, Indonesia is traversed by the infamous “ring of fire” and prone to natural events resulting from the tectonic plate movements of the Australian Plate from the South, the Eurasian and Sunda Plates from the North and the Philippine Plate from the East. Left unmitigated, these natural events would lead to natural disasters emanating from resulting earthquakes and leading to tsunamis, landslides, the collapse of building structures and failure of lifelines (roads, pipelines, electrical grid, etc.). In an effort to provide disaster-safe schools, the National Agency for Disaster Management has required that school facilities be a community center in case of disasters and serve as emergency shelters. Retrofit of existing buildings will be needed to comply with government guidelines. This paper presents a case study of the determination of structural deficiencies of an existing school building in SDN 42 Korong Gadang, Padang, West Sumatra and implementation of a seismic retrofit (design and construction) at the same building to mitigate potential earthquake disaster.

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Hybrid MPPT Control Applied to a Flyback Micro-Inverter Connected the Electrical Grid

2018 13th IEEE International Conference on Industry Applications (INDUSCON) ◽

10.1109/induscon.2018.8627283 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Renata de Oliveira Lima ◽

Luiz Henrique S. C. Barreto ◽

Francisco Everton Uchoa Reis

Keyword(s):

Electrical Grid ◽

Micro Inverter

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A Survey on Vulnerabilities and Countermeasures in the Communications of the Smart Grid

Electronics ◽

10.3390/electronics10161881 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (16) ◽

pp. 1881

Author(s):

Jesús Lázaro ◽

Armando Astarloa ◽

Mikel Rodríguez ◽

Unai Bidarte ◽

Jaime Jiménez

Keyword(s):

Smart Grid ◽

Real Time ◽

International Electrotechnical Commission ◽

Communication Infrastructure ◽

Iec 61850 ◽

Best Effort ◽

Electrical Grid ◽

Informational Technology ◽

Iec 62351 ◽

Time Critical

Since the 1990s, the digitalization process has transformed the communication infrastructure within the electrical grid: proprietary infrastructures and protocols have been replaced by the IEC 61850 approach, which realizes interoperability among vendors. Furthermore, the latest networking solutions merge operational technologies (OTs) and informational technology (IT) traffics in the same media, such as time-sensitive networking (TSN)—standard, interoperable, deterministic, and Ethernet-based. It merges OT and IT worlds by defining three basic traffic types: scheduled, best-effort, and reserved traffic. However, TSN demands security against potential new cyberattacks, primarily, to protect real-time critical messages. Consequently, security in the smart grid has turned into a hot topic under regulation, standardization, and business. This survey collects vulnerabilities of the communication in the smart grid and reveals security mechanisms introduced by international electrotechnical commission (IEC) 62351-6 and how to apply them to time-sensitive networking.

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