From Smart Meters To Smart Decisions: Web-Based Support For The Water Efficient Household

Smart water metering technologies for residential buildings offer, in principle, great opportunities for sustainable urban water management. However, much of this potential is as yet unrealized. Despite that several ICT solutions have already been deployed aiming at optimum operations on the water utilities side (e.g. real time control for water networks, dynamic pump scheduling etc.), little work has been done to date on the consumer side. This paper presents a web-based platform targeting primarily the household end user. The platform enables consumers to monitor, on a real-time basis, the water demand of their household, providing feedback not only on the total water consumption and relevant costs but also on the efficiency (or otherwise) of specific indoor and outdoor uses. Targeting the reduction of consumption, the provided feedback is combined with notifications about possible leakages\bursts, and customised suggestions to improve the efficiency of existing household uses. It also enables various comparisons, with past consumption or even with that of similar households, aiming to motivate further the householder to become an active player in the water efficiency challenge. The issue of enhancing the platform’s functionality with energy timeseries is also discussed in view of recent advances in smart metering and the concept of “smart cities”. The paper presents a prototype of this web-based application and critically discusses first testing results and insights. It also presents the way in which the platform communicates with central databases, at the water utility level. It is suggested that such developments are closing the gap between technology availability and usefulness to end users and could help both the uptake of smart metering and awareness raising leading, potentially, to significant reductions of urban water consumption. The work has received funding from the European Union FP7 Programme through the iWIDGET Project, under grant agreement no318272.

Smart meters as a tool for energy efficiency

Gradually smart grids and smart meters are closer to the home consumers. Several countries has developed studies focused in the impacts arising from the introduction of these technologies and one of the main advantages are related to energy efficiency, observed through the awareness of the population on behalf of a more efficient consumption. These benefits are felt directly by consumers through the savings on electricity bills and also by the concessionaires through the minimization of losses in transmission and distribution, system stability, smaller loading during peak hours, among others. In this article two projects that demonstrate the potential energy savings through smart meters and smart grids are presented. The first performed in Korea, focusing on the installation of smart meters and the impact of use of user interfaces. The second performed in Portugal, focusing on the control of loads in a residence with distributed generation.

People or machines? Assessing the impacts of smart meters and load controllers in Italian office spaces

Government initiatives in several developed and developing countries to roll-out smart meters call for research on the sustainability impacts of these devices. In principle smart meters bring about higher control over energy theft and lower consumption, but require a high level of engagement by end-users. An alternative consists of load controllers, which control the load according to pre-set parameters. To date, research has focused on the impacts of these two alternatives separately. This study compares the sustainability impacts of smart meters and load controllers in an occupied office building in Italy. The assessment is carried out on three different floors of the same building. Findings show that demand reductions associated with a smart meter device are 5.2% higher than demand reductions associated with the load controller.

Power quality, smart meters and additional information from different power terms

This paper shows how the detailed examination of active and nonactive power components may produce new information for modern smart meters. For this purpose, a prototype of electronic power meter has been implemented and applied to the evaluation of the Conservative Power Theory (CPT). Considering five sorts of loads, under four different operating conditions, the experimental results indicate that the CPT is able to provide a good methodology for load characterization, which could possibly benefits consumers and power utilities in several different ways. The results also show that depending on the situation, the analysis of nonactive power terms may be more important than the observation of traditional power quality indices, such as total harmonic distortion, unbalance factors or the fundamental positive sequence power factor.

Time-of-use electricity tariffs with smart meters

This paper proposes a method for scheduling tariff time periods for electricity consumers. Europe will see a broader use of modern smart meters for electricity at residential consumers which must be used for enabling demand response. A heuristic-based method for tariff time period scheduling and pricing is proposed which considers different consumer groups with parameters studied a priori, taking advantage of demand response potential for each group and the fairness of electricity pricing for all consumers. This tool was applied to the case of Portugal, considering the actual network and generation costs, specific consumption profiles and overall electricity low voltage demand diagram. The proposed method achieves valid results. Its use will provide justification for the setting of tariff time periods by energy regulators, network operators and suppliers. It is also useful to estimate the consumer and electric sector benefits from changes in tariff time periods.

Consumer phase identification in a three phase unbalanced LV distribution network

A new technique is presented for automatically identifying the phase connection of domestic customers. Voltage information from a reference three phase house is correlated with voltage information from other customer electricity meters on the same network to determine the highest probability phase connection. The techniques are purely based upon a time series of electrical voltage measurements taken by the household smart meters and no additional equipment is required. The method is demonstrated using real smart meter datasets to correctly identify the phase connections of 75 consumers on a low voltage distribution feeder.

A new error measure for forecasts of household-level, high resolution electrical energy consumption

As low carbon technologies become more pervasive, distribution network operators are looking to support the expected changes in the demands on the low voltage networks through the smarter control of storage devices. Accurate forecasts of demand at the single household-level, or of small aggregations of households, can improve the peak demand reduction brought about through such devices by helping to plan the appropriate charging and discharging cycles. However, before such methods can be developed, validation measures are required which can assess the accuracy and usefulness of forecasts of volatile and noisy household-level demand. In this paper we introduce a new forecast verification error measure that reduces the so called “double penalty” effect, incurred by forecasts whose features are displaced in space or time, compared to traditional point-wise metrics, such as Mean Absolute Error and p-norms in general. The measure that we propose is based on finding a restricted permutation of the original forecast that minimises the point wise error, according to a given metric. We illustrate the advantages of our error measure using half-hourly domestic household electrical energy usage data recorded by smart meters and discuss the effect of the permutation restriction.

Smart Grid Test Bed Design and Implementation

Given there is currently a migration trend from traditional electrical supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems towards a smart grid based approach to critical infrastructure management. This project provides an evaluation of existing and proposed implementations for both traditional electrical SCADA and smart grid based architectures, and proposals a set of reference requirements which test bed implementations should implement. A high-level design for smart grid test beds is proposed and initial implementation performed, based on the proposed design, using open source and freely available software tools. The project examines the move towards smart grid based critical infrastructure management and illustrates the increased security requirements. The implemented test bed provides a basic framework for testing network requirements in a smart grid environment, as well as a platform for further research and development. Particularly to develop, implement and test network security related disturbances such as intrusion detection and network forensics. The project undertaken proposes and develops an architecture of the emulation of some smart grid functionality. The Common Open Research Emulator (CORE) platform was used to emulate the communication network of the smart grid. Specifically CORE was used to virtualise and emulate the TCP/IP networking stack. This is intended to be used for further evaluation and analysis, for example the analysis of application protocol messages, etc. As a proof of concept, software libraries were designed, developed and documented to enable and support the design and development of further smart grid emulated components, such as reclosers, switches, smart meters, etc. As part of the testing and evaluation a Modbus based smart meter emulator was developed to provide basic functionality of a smart meter. Further code was developed to send Modbus request messages to the emulated smart meter and receive Modbus responses from it. Although the functionality of the emulated components were limited, it does provide a starting point for further research and development. The design is extensible to enable the design and implementation of additional SCADA protocols. The project also defines an evaluation criteria for the evaluation of the implemented test bed, and experiments are designed to evaluate the test bed according to the defined criteria. The results of the experiments are collated and presented, and conclusions drawn from the results to facilitate discussion on the test bed implementation. The discussion undertaken also present possible future work.

Privacy in the new era of visible and sharable energy-use information

A new era of visible and sharable electricity information is emerging. Where eco-feedback is installed, households can now visualise many aspects of their energy consumption and share this information with others through Internet platforms such as social media. Despite providing users with many affordances, eco-feedback information can make public previously private actions from within the intimate setting of the family home. This paper represents a study focussing specifically on the privacy aspects of nascent ways for viewing and sharing this new stream of personal information. It explores the nuances of privacy related to eco-feedback both within and beyond the family home. While electricity consumption information may not be considered private itself, the household practices which eco-feedback systems makes visible may be private. We show that breaches of privacy can occur in unexpected ways and have the potential to cause distress. The paper concludes with some suggestions for how to realise the benefits of sharing energy consumption information whist effectively maintaining individuals’ conceptions of adequate privacy.

Correlation based method for phase identification in a three phase LV distribution network

Low voltage distribution networks feature a high degree of load unbalance and the addition of rooftop photovoltaic is driving further unbalances in the network. Single phase consumers are distributed across the phases but even if the consumer distribution was well balanced when the network was constructed changes will occur over time. Distribution transformer losses are increased by unbalanced loadings. The estimation of transformer losses is a necessary part of the routine upgrading and replacement of transformers and the identification of the phase connections of households allows a precise estimation of the phase loadings and total transformer loss. This paper presents a new technique and preliminary test results for a method of automatically identifying the phase of each customer by correlating voltage information from the utility's transformer system with voltage information from customer smart meters. The techniques are novel as they are purely based upon a time series of electrical voltage measurements taken at the household and at the distribution transformer. Experimental results using a combination of electrical power and current of the real smart meter datasets demonstrate the performance of our techniques.

Low-Cost Cloud-Based Design of Smart Rural Energy Device in Microgrid: Perspective India An Energy-On-Demand Service for Rural India

In this paper we present a combination of technologies to provide an Energy-on-Demand (EoD) service to enable low cost innovation suitable for microgrid networks. The system is designed around the low cost and simple Rural Energy Device (RED) Box which in combination with Short Message Service (SMS) communication methodology serves as an elementary proxy for Smart meters which are typically used in urban settings. Further, customer behavior and familiarity in using such devices based on mobile experience has been incorporated into the design philosophy. Customers are incentivized to interact with the system thus providing valuable behavioral and usage data to the Utility Service Provider (USP). Data that is collected over time can be used by the USP for analytics envisioned by using remote computing services known as cloud computing service. Cloud computing allows for a sharing of computational resources at the virtual level across several networks. The customer-system interaction is facilitated by a third party Telecom Service provider (TSP). The approximate cost of the RED Box is envisaged to be under USD 10 on production scale.

Mathematical solutions for electricity networks in a low carbon future

Smart meters are becoming more ubiquitous as governments aim to reduce the risks to the energy supply as the world moves toward a low carbon economy. The data they provide could create a wealth of information to better understand customer behaviour. However at the household, and even the low voltage (LV) substation level, energy demand is extremely volatile, irregular and noisy compared to the demand at the high voltage (HV) substation level. Novel analytical methods will be required in order to optimise the use of household level data. In this paper we briefly outline some mathematical techniques which will play a key role in better understanding the customer's behaviour and create solutions for supporting the network at the LV substation level.

Desenvolvimento de um smart meter: um estudo sobre eficiência energética através das redes inteligentes

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Elétrica - FEB

Middleware architectures for the Smart Grid : survey and challenges in the foreseeable future

The traditional power grid is just a one-way supplier that gets no feedback data about the energy delivered, what tariffs could be the most suitable ones for customers, the shifting daily needs of electricity in a facility, etc. Therefore, it is only natural that efforts are being invested in improving power grid behavior and turning it into a Smart Grid. However, to this end, several components have to be either upgraded or created from scratch. Among the new components required, middleware appears as a critical one, for it will abstract all the diversity of the used devices for power transmission (smart meters, embedded systems, etc.) and will provide the application layer with a homogeneous interface involving power production and consumption management data that were not able to be provided before. Additionally, middleware is expected to guarantee that updates to the current metering infrastructure (changes in service or hardware availability) or any added legacy measuring appliance will get acknowledged for any future request. Finally, semantic features are of major importance to tackle scalability and interoperability issues. A survey on the most prominent middleware architectures for Smart Grids is presented in this paper, along with an evaluation of their features and their strong points and weaknesses.

Smart electricity grids: A very slow deployment in the EU. Egmont Paper No. 74, February 2015

Summary. The European electricity sector will have to deal with a huge challenge in the decades to come. On the one hand, electrical power is increasingly substituted for other forms of energy. It has been forecast that electricity demand will increase in the future (notably because of new needs in transport and heat sectors), although it is currently stagnant, mainly because of the economic crisis. Unless a major alternative energy source is discovered, electricity will become the central energy pillar in the long term. On the other hand, electricity production remains uncertain and will depend on numerous factors: the growth of renewable energy and decentralized energy, the renewal of old power generation capacities, increased external dependency, CO2 charges, etc. This increases the demand for electricity networks that are more reliable, more efficient, and more flexible. Europe’s current electricity networks are ageing, and, as already indicated by the International Energy Agency, many of them will need to be modernized or replaced in the decades to come. Finally, the growing impact of energy trading also needs to be taken into account. These considerations explain the need to modernize the electric grid through various ICT means. This modernization alone may allow the grid to become more flexible and interactive, to provide real time feedback, more adaptation to a fluctuating demand, and finally to reduce the global electricity costs. The paper begins with a description of the EU definition of the term ‘smart grid’ (§ 1) and of the body in charge of advising the Commission (§ 2). The EU legal framework applicable to smart grids is also detailed (§ 3). It is a rather complex domain, connected to various regulations. The paper then examines three critical factors in the development of smart grids (and smart meters as a precondition). Standardization is quite complex, but absolutely essential (§ 4). Innovation is not easily put into action (§ 5). Finally, as digital insecurity has worsened dramatically in recent years, the security of electricity networks, and especially their multiplied electronic components, will become increasingly important (§ 6). Lastly, the paper provides a concise overview of the progress of smart grids in the EU in recent years (§ 7). In a nutshell, the conclusion is that progress is quite slow, many obstacles remain, and, given the appearance of many new regulatory problems, it would be useful to organize a review of the present EU strategy.