scholarly journals Vehicle Electrification: New Challenges and Opportunities for Smart Grids

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitor Monteiro ◽  
Jose Afonso ◽  
Joao Ferreira ◽  
Joao Afonso

Nowadays, concerns about climate change have contributed significantly to changing the paradigm in the urban transportation sector towards vehicle electrification, where purely electric or hybrid vehicles are increasingly a new reality, supported by all major automotive brands. Nevertheless, new challenges are imposed on the current electrical power grids in terms of a synergistic, progressive, dynamic and stable integration of electric mobility. Besides the traditional unidirectional charging, more and more, the adoption of a bidirectional interconnection is expected to be a reality. In addition, whenever the vehicle is plugged-in, the on-board power electronics can also be used for other purposes, such as in the event of a power failure, regardless if the vehicle is in charging mode or not. Other new opportunities, from the electrical grid point of view, are even more relevant in the context of off-board power electronics systems, which can be enhanced with new features as, for example, compensation of power quality problems or interface with renewable energy sources. In this sense, this paper aims to present, in a comprehensive way, the new challenges and opportunities that smart grids are facing, including the new technologies in the vehicle electrification, towards a sustainable future. A theoretical analysis is also presented and supported by experimental validation based on developed laboratory prototypes.

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 8585
Author(s):  
Joao L. Afonso ◽  
Mohamed Tanta ◽  
José Gabriel Oliveira Pinto ◽  
Luis F. C. Monteiro ◽  
Luis Machado ◽  
...  

Nowadays, new challenges arise relating to the compensation of power quality problems, where the introduction of innovative solutions based on power electronics is of paramount importance. The evolution from conventional electrical power grids to smart grids requires the use of a large number of power electronics converters, indispensable for the integration of key technologies, such as renewable energies, electric mobility and energy storage systems, which adds importance to power quality issues. Addressing these topics, this paper presents an extensive review on power electronics technologies applied to power quality improvement, highlighting, and explaining the main phenomena associated with the occurrence of power quality problems in smart grids, their cause and effects for different activity sectors, and the main power electronics topologies for each technological solution. More specifically, the paper presents a review and classification of the main power quality problems and the respective context with the standards, a review of power quality problems related to the power production from renewables, the contextualization with solid-state transformers, electric mobility and electrical railway systems, a review of power electronics solutions to compensate the main power quality problems, as well as power electronics solutions to guarantee high levels of power quality. Relevant experimental results and exemplificative developed power electronics prototypes are also presented throughout the paper.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-58
Author(s):  
Alessio M. Pacces ◽  
Laurent Germain ◽  
Áron Perényi

This review covers the book titled “CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: NEW CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES”, which was written by Alexander N. Kostyuk, Udo Braendle and Vincenzo Capizzi (Virtus Interpress, 2017, Hardcover, ISBN: 978-617-7309-00-9). The review shortly outlines the structure of the book, pays attention to it’s strong sides and issues that will be, by the reviewers’ point of view, most interesting for the reader.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Israa Aziz ◽  
Hai Jin ◽  
Ihsan Abdulqadder ◽  
Zaid Hussien ◽  
Zaid Abduljabbar ◽  
...  

Self-reconfiguration in electrical power grids is a significant tool for their planning and operation during both normal and abnormal conditions. The increasing in employment of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), as well as the rapid growth of the new communication technologies have increased the application of Feeder Automation (FA) in Distribution Networks (DNs). In a Smart Grid (SG), automation equipment, such as a Smart Breaker (SB), is used. Using either a wired or a wireless network or even a combination of both, communication between the Control Center (CC) and SBs can be made. Nowadays, wireless technology is widely used in the communication of DNs. This may cause several security vulnerabilities in the power system, such as remote attacks, with the goal of cutting off the electrical power provided to significant consumers. Therefore, to preserve the cybersecurity of the system, there is a need for a secure scheme. The available literature investments proposed a heavyweight level in security schemes, while the overhead was not considered. To overcome this drawback, this paper presents an efficient lightweight authentication mechanism with the necessary steps to ensure real-time automatic reconfiguration during a fault. As a first stage, authentication will be made between CC and SB, SB then sends the information about its status. To ensure the integrity of the authentication exchange, a hash function is used, while the symmetric algorithm is used to ensure privacy. The applicability of the suggested scheme has been proved by conducting security performance and analysis. The proposed scheme will be injected on ABB medium voltage breaker with the REF 542plus controller. Therefore, the probable benefit of the suggested scheme is the contribution to provide more flexibility for electrical utilities in terms of reducing the overall computational overhead and withstanding to various types of attacks, while also opening new prospects in FA of SGs.


Author(s):  
José Goldemberg

Without a doubt, the topic of energy--from coal, oil, and nuclear to geothermal, solar and wind--is one of the most pressing across the globe. It is of paramount importance to policy makers, economists, environmentalists, and industry as they consider which technologies to invest in, how to promote use of renewable energy sources, and how to plan for dwindling reserves of non-renewable energy. In Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know, José Goldemberg, a nuclear physicist who has been hailed by Time magazine as one of the world's top "leaders and visionaries on the environment," takes readers through the basics of the world energy system, its problems, and the technical as well as non-technical solutions to the most pressing energy problems. Addressing the issues in a Q-and-A format, Goldemberg answers such questions as: What are wind, wave, and geothermal energy? What are the problems of nuclear waste disposal? What is acid rain? What is the greenhouse gas effect? What is Carbon Capture and Storage? What are smart grids? What is the Kyoto Protocol? What is "cap and trade"? The book sheds light on the role of population growth in energy consumption, renewable energy resources, the amount of available energy reserves (and when they will run out), geopolitical issues, environmental problems, the frequency of environmental disasters, energy efficiency, new technologies, and solutions to changing consumption patterns. It will be the first place to look for information on the vital topic of energy.


Author(s):  
A. G. Fishov ◽  
I. S. Murashkina ◽  
A. I. Marchenko ◽  
E. Erdenebat ◽  
Y. S. Ivkin

One of the key aspects in the development of power engineering all over the world is the use of distributed small-scale generation. This is both based on fuel carbon resources with a synchronized connection between sources when they are connected to the electric power grids and renewable energy sources operated in the electrical grid via frequency converters (electronic generation). The latter brings an inevitable broad use of inverters in available AC power systems. The objectives of this paper are numerous. First is the desire to study the effect of electronic generation on modes and stability of current electrical grids and electrical power systems. Another objective is to establish requirements for electronic generation control that lets us minimize actions on relay protection coordination and automation upon the integration of electronic generation in power grids. A final objective is to increase the reliability of general electrical modes. This article shows the outcomes of the study on the statical aperiodic stability of the electrical power system upon the integration of electronic generation, requirements for its statical characteristics, and the control when operated within the electrical power system.


Cryptography ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 257-276
Author(s):  
Melesio Calderón Muñoz ◽  
Melody Moh

The electrical power grid forms the functional foundation of our modern societies, but in the near future our aging electrical infrastructure will not be able to keep pace with our demands. As a result, nations worldwide have started to convert their power grids into smart grids that will have improved communication and control systems. A smart grid will be better able to incorporate new forms of energy generation as well as be self-healing and more reliable. This paper investigates a threat to wireless communication networks from a fully realized quantum computer, and provides a means to avoid this problem in smart grid domains. We discuss and compare the security aspects, the complexities and the performance of authentication using public-key cryptography and using Merkel trees. As a result, we argue for the use of Merkle trees as opposed to public key encryption for authentication of devices in wireless mesh networks (WMN) used in smart grid applications.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 2601
Author(s):  
Vitor Monteiro ◽  
Luis F. C. Monteiro ◽  
Francesco Lo Franco ◽  
Riccardo Mandrioli ◽  
Mattia Ricco ◽  
...  

Electrical power grids are rapidly evolving into smart grids, with smart homes also making an important contribution to this. In fact, the well-known and emerging technologies of renewables, energy storage systems and electric mobility are each time more distributed throughout the power grid and included in smart homes. In such circumstances, since these technologies are natively operating in DC, it is predictable for a revolution in the electrical grid craving a convergence to DC grids. Nevertheless, traditional loads natively operating in AC will continue to be used, highlighting the importance of hybrid AC/DC grids. Considering this new paradigm, this paper has as main innovation points the proposed control algorithms regarding the role of front-end AC/DC converters in hybrid AC/DC smart homes, demonstrating their importance for providing unipolar or bipolar DC grids for interfacing native DC technologies, such as renewables and electric mobility, including concerns regarding the power quality from a smart grid point of view. Furthermore, the paper presents a clear description of the proposed control algorithms, aligned with distinct possibilities of complementary operation of front-end AC/DC converters in the perspective of smart homes framed within smart grids, e.g., enabling the control of smart homes in a coordinated way. The analysis and experimental results confirmed the suitability of the proposed innovative operation modes for hybrid AC/DC smart homes, based on two different AC/DC converters in the experimental validation.


Author(s):  
Joel Blecher

The first part of this chapter investigates continuities and changes as the figures and texts of the commentary tradition migrated eastward to India and found new life under the rich patronage of the sultanates in Gujarat and the Deccan from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. These patrons appeared to value both the intellectual and social goods on offer in the commentarial practice, and thus the fortunes of migrant hadith commentators and the political and military elite in India were intertwined. The second part of this chapter explores how reformist groups such as the Deobandis and the Ahl-i Hadith again turned to hadith commentary to navigate new challenges and opportunities in nineteenth- and twentieth-century India, as British colonial power intensified, established competing institutions of law and education, and introduced new technologies of print. Excerpts from the commentaries of Anwar Shah al-Kashmiri and Siddiq Hassan Khan are given special attention.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 3607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Sodin ◽  
Rajne Ilievska ◽  
Andrej Čampa ◽  
Miha Smolnikar ◽  
Urban Rudez

It is widely recognized that in the transition from conventional electrical power systems (EPSs) towards smart grids, electrical voltage frequency will be greatly affected. This is why this research is extremely valuable, especially since rate-of-change-of-frequency (RoCoF) is often considered as a potential means of resolving newly arisen problems, but is often challenged in practice due to the noise and its oscillating character. In this paper, the authors further developed and tested one of the new technologies related to under-frequency load shedding (UFLS) protection. Since the basic idea was to enhance the selected technology’s readiness level, a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) setup with an RTDS was assembled. The under-frequency technology was implemented in an intelligent electronic device (IED) and included in the HIL setup. The IED acted as one of several protection devices, representing a last-resort system protection scheme. All main contributions of this research deal with using RoCoF in an innovative UFLS scheme under test: (i) appropriate selection and parameterization of RoCoF filtering techniques does not worsen under-frequency load shedding during fast-occurring events, (ii) locally measured RoCoF can be effectively used for bringing a high level of flexibility to a system-wide scheme, and (iii) diversity of relays and RoCoF-measuring techniques is an advantage, not a drawback.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Pakulska

In the conditions of climate change and the scarcity of natural resources, the future of energy is increasingly associated with the development of the so-called green energy. Its development is reflected in the European Commission strategic vision to transition to a climate-neutral economy. This is a challenge that the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, members of the EU, are also trying to meet. In recent years, these countries have seen an increase in the share of renewable energy and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GGE). On the other hand, basing the energy sector on unstable energy sources (photovoltaics and wind technologies) may imply new challenges on the way to sustainable development. These are old problems in a new version (ecology, diversification of supplies) and new ones related to the features of renewable energy sources (RES; instability, dispersion). The aim of the article was to classify, on the basis of taxonomic methods, the CEE countries from the point of view of green energy transformation (original indicator) and to predict new threats to Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria, the countries representing different groups according to the applied classification. The issues presented are part of a holistic view of RES and can be useful in energy policy.


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