Smart buildings provide opportunities for technological transformations in building environments to improve resource management, comfort, and efficiency of the systems present in these facilities. For this, Internet of Things (IoT) solutions contribute, with monitoring and remote control features, to automate these environments. However, these solutions can promote the disposal or replacement of outdated but still-needed legacy systems. Thus, a reference model that uses retrofit techniques to update pre-existing systems would be an alternative to enable smart building convergence. The lack of models that advocate this type of strategy provides an opportunity for the emergence of methods capable of filling this gap. Thus, this work presents a strategy for implementing monitoring, control, and communication resources to achieve smart building convergence in legacy building systems. This strategy consists of the use of retrofit techniques based on the adaptation of the SmartLVGrid metamod... [more]

Throughout time, European policies on climate and energy change have generated several transformations in the building sector. In this endeavour, digital technologies have played an essential role in energy efficiency through process optimisation. However, data integration and exchange between different solutions is still challenging to achieve. With the advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) based solutions, one of the latest innovations, new opportunities are envisioned. IoT solutions have been implemented in smart grids, intelligent buildings, smart cities, and other sectors in recent years. Following the guidelines of ISA/ANSI 95-Enterprise-Control System Integration, the edge computing apps and cloud platform are needed to solve data bottlenecks, data ingestion, data integration aspects, bringing at the same time new knowledge related to user comfort, energy management and accessibility. This research focuses on a case study that shows how the thermal comfort of a building can be... [more]

Quantum computing is a game-changing technology that affects modern cryptography and security systems including distributed energy resources (DERs) systems. Since the new quantum era is coming soon in 5−10 years, it is crucial to prepare and develop quantum-safe DER systems. This paper provides a comprehensive review of vulnerabilities caused by quantum computing attacks, potential defense strategies, and remaining challenges for DER networks. First, new security vulnerabilities and attack models of the cyber-physical DER systems caused by quantum computing attacks are explored. Moreover, this paper introduces potential quantum attack defense strategies including Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), which can be applied to DER networks and evaluates defense strategies. Finally, remaining research opportunities and challenges for next-generation quantum-safe DER are discussed.

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of using anomaly detection in cyclic communication as a method aimed at protecting industrial installations from steganographic communication and a wide range of cyberattacks. The analysis was performed for a method based on deterministic finite automaton and the authors’ method using cycles. In this paper, we discuss the cycle detection algorithm and graph construction as well as demonstrate an anomaly detection method for cyberattack detection that utilizes stochastic elements, such as time-to-response and time-between-messages. We present a novel algorithm that combines finite automaton determinism modeling consecutive admissible messages with a time-domain model allowing for random deviations of regularity. The study was conducted for several test scenarios, including C&C steganographic channels generated using the Modbus TCP/IP protocol. Experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of the algorithms are presented for both methods.... [more]

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV), where people, fleets of electric vehicles (EVs), utility, power grids, distributed renewable energy, and communications and computing infrastructures are connected, has emerged as the next big leap in smart grids and city sectors for a sustainable society. Meanwhile, decentralized and complex grid edge faces many challenges for planning, operation, and management of power systems. Therefore, providing a reliable communications infrastructure is vital. The fourth industrial revolution, that is, a cyber-physical system in conjunction with the Internet of Things (IoT) and coexistence of edge (fog) and cloud computing brings new ways of dealing with such challenges and helps maximize the benefits of power grids. From this perspective, as a use case of IoV, we present a cloud-based EV charging framework to tackle issues of high demand in charging stations during peak hours. A price incentive scheme and another scheme, electricity supply expansion, are present... [more]

The fourth industrial revolution taking place in the industrial sector is related to the increasing digitization and linkage of goods, products, value chains and business models. Industry 4.0 is based on the global connection of people, things and machines. By connecting devices and sensors to the internet, we are entering a new era of data analysis, connectivity and automation. This gives great opportunities for innovation and progress, previously unattainable in such a dimension. The term Internet of Things (IoT) has spread along with the vision of a world instrumented with intelligent inputs and outputs able to communicate with each other through internet data and technologies. IoT is being implemented in various areas of the modern economy, for example, healthcare, quality control, logistics, energy, agriculture and production. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) blazes the trail to a better understanding of the manufacturing process, thus enabling efficient and sustainable pr... [more]

It is essential for the electricity sector to analyze and determine the distribution capacity throughput and apply new methods aimed at increasing the capacity of the transmission system. Consequently, the transition to modern electricity networks is two-sided, i.e., involving technological and social modifications. The demand response (DR) redistributes consumption away from peak times when grid load and costs are the highest. It incentivizes customers to use electricity when supply is high and inexpensive due to various market mechanisms. The present DR policy proposals stress the importance of fostering behavioral change through competitive pricing and customer participation in reducing carbon emissions and implementing smart energy solutions (including monitoring tools, such as smart meters and applications). The internet of things (IoT) has been applied to ensure adaptive monitoring of energy consumption and cost-effective and adequate demand-side management (DSM). The article is... [more]

Microgrids should be continuously monitored in order to maintain suitable voltages over time. Microgrids are mainly monitored remotely, and their measurement data transmitted through lossy communication networks are vulnerable to cyberattacks and packet loss. The current study leverages the idea of data fusion to address this problem. Hence, this paper investigates the effects of estimation fusion using various machine-learning (ML) regression methods as data fusion methods by aggregating the distributed Kalman filter (KF)-based state estimates of a linear smart microgrid in order to achieve more accurate and reliable state estimates. This unreliability in measurements is because they are received through a lossy communication network that incorporates packet loss and cyberattacks. In addition to ML regression methods, multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and dependent ordered weighted averaging (DOWA) operators are also employed for further comparisons. The results of simulation on the IEEE 4... [more]

The paper presents problems related to the processing of signals recorded with differential field probes E and H. The fundamental problem to which special attention has been paid is the result of the integration operation. Due to the presence of constant/slowly-varying components in the raw signal, there is a drift present in the outcome of integration. This line wander can be enormous. This is particularly evident if the integration is performed in a standard manner, uniformly over the entire recorded waveform. The paper contains the Authors’ proposition to segment the signal and perform the integration independently in each of the sub-regions. This approach is based on the assumption of a local mean value instead of its global character for the recorded waveform. Although this leads to more complex signal processing, it gives significantly better results as it is suppressing the deterioration drift in the integrated signal more than 400 times. The results are presented on laboratory... [more]

We present a prototype of a decentralized power trading system based on the use of distributed ledger technology. This sort of efficient, decentralized marketplace is needed to empower prosumers and make them first-class members of a smart, decentralized power grid in order to drive further renewable energy adoption. Unlike the bulk of previous work in this field, we focus on private permissioned distributed ledgers rather than conventional blockchains. The proposed solution is entirely independent of cryptocurrency, with an explicit design capability of being adapted piecemeal without any fundamental changes to the present regulatory environment. To be economical, efficient, and scalable, our prototype is based on a lean, Corda-based private permissioned distributed ledger. It allows for instant, automatic bidding on and trading of ‘power promises’ and the robust implementation of short-term, small-scale liquid electrical power futures. We demonstrate that the prototype performs well... [more]

The increasing prevalence of renewable energy resources introduces a high variability that complicates the task of energy management in modern power grids. Among other technologies, batteries have proven effective in managing power imbalances in such grids. However, the high cost of large-scale batteries, coupled with their enormous space requirements, could deter their adoption by large consumers such as shared facility controllers. The aggregation of residential energy storage units offers shared facility controllers (SFCs) an alternative way to leverage storage; however, a secure scheme that promotes fairness and transparency in the selection and compensation of shared storage unit owners is needed. To this end, an Ethereum smart contract that makes residential storage capacities available to SFCs via a double auction mechanism is proposed. The contract is written with solidity and deployed in the browser-based Remix-integrated development environment. Scenario tests prove the effec... [more]

Lithium-ion battery devices are essential for energy storage and supply in distributed energy generation systems. Robust battery management systems (BMSs) must guarantee that batteries work within a safe range and avoid the damage caused by overcharge and overdischarge. The state-of-charge (SoC) of Li-ion batteries is difficult to observe after batteries are manufactured. The hysteresis phenomenon influences the existing battery modeling and SoC estimation accuracy. This research applies a terminal sliding mode observer (TSMO) algorithm based on a hysteresis resistor-capacitor (RC) equivalent circuit model to enable accurate SoC estimation. The proposed method is evaluated using two dynamic battery tests: the dynamic street test (DST) and the federal urban driving schedule (FUDS) test. The simulation results show that the proposed method achieved high estimation accuracy and fast response speed. Additionally, real-time battery information, including battery output voltage and SoC, was... [more]

This paper presents a comprehensive review of multi-port power electronics converters used for application in AC, DC, or hybrid distribution systems in an Internet of Energy scenario. In particular, multi-port solid-state transformer (SST) topologies have been addressed and classified according to their isolation capabilities and their conversion stages configurations. Non-conventional configurations have been considered. A comparison of the most relevant features and design specifications between popular topologies has been provided through a comprehensive and effective table. Potential benefits of SSTs in distribution applications have been highlighted even with reference to a network active nodes usage. This review also highlights standards and technical regulations in force for connecting SSTs to the electrical distribution system. Finally, two case studies of multi-port topologies have been presented and discussed. The first one is an isolated multi-port bidirectional dual active... [more]

The building sector is undergoing a deep transformation to contribute to meeting the climate neutrality goals set by policymakers worldwide. This process entails the transition towards smart energy-aware buildings that have lower consumptions and better efficiency performance. Digitalization is a key part of this process. A huge amount of data is currently generated by sensors, smart meters and a multitude of other devices and data sources, and this trend is expected to exponentially increase in the near future. Exploiting these data for different use cases spanning multiple application scenarios is of utmost importance to capture their full value and build smart and innovative building services. In this context, this paper presents a high-level architecture for big data management in the building domain which aims to foster data sharing, interoperability and the seamless integration of advanced services based on data-driven techniques. This work focuses on the functional description o... [more]

The development of tourist destinations has been determined by sustainable energy management and the advancement of traditional methods. The rate of development must adapt to technological innovations while also considering future generations. The present study aims to determine to what extent tourism personnel are aware of the skills, knowledge, and methods for sustainable energy management, and also to analyze the Internet of Things as a technological solution for sustainable energy management at tourism destinations in India with the help of the Servqual method. It is important to implement modern technologies such as internal things and develop a sustainable attitude toward tourism. Findings suggested that over each attribute of Servqual model, reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness of IoT as sustainable energy management solutions at tourism destinations in India, tourism stakeholders have higher level of expectations (23.41, 19.86, 18.45, 23.60 and 24.73) a... [more]

The Internet of Energy is the deployment of IoT technology within energy systems (including distributed power monitoring and measuring points, energy plant sensors, points of distribution) to increase the efficiency of the whole infrastructure while decreasing energy waste. Due to criticality and the extension of the Internet of Energy, it needs an underlying network with vast coverage and high-efficiency parameters. In this paper, we argue that the 5G network is suitable for the Internet of Energy and present a concrete 5G implementation based on Open RAN that may gain in flexibility while reducing costs. In our simulations, we model and validate beamforming mechanism in Open RAN 5G and show that beamforming may achieve high-efficiency parameters that the Internet of Energy requires.

The increasing use of nonlinear loads in the power grid introduces some unwanted effects, such as harmonic and interharmonic contamination. Since the existence of spectral contamination causes waveform distortion that may be harmful to the loads that are connected to the grid, it is important to identify the frequency components that are related to specific loads in order to determine how relevant their contribution is to the waveform distortion levels. Due to the diversity of frequency components that are merged in an electrical signal, it is a challenging task to discriminate the relevant frequencies from those that are not. Therefore, it is necessary to develop techniques that allow performing this selection in an efficient way. This paper proposes the use of spectral kurtosis for the identification of stationary frequency components in electrical signals along the day in a sustainable building. Then, the behavior of the identified frequencies is analyzed to determine which of the l... [more]

The indoor environment climate should be controlled by continuously maintaining the temperature and relative humidity to achieve thermal comfort. A monitoring system of both parameters is the first step to improving indoor comfort quality. This paper presents a smart wireless climate sensor node for indoor temperature and humidity monitoring with a powering strategy and design approach for autonomous operation. The data logging results are sent to the cloud using Internet of Things protocol for thermal comfort monitoring and analysis. The monitoring and analysis results are useful to monitor and control the indoor thermal comfort condition for room occupants. A sensor node was designed that includes a low-power mode and compact size features. It consists of a built-in AVR-based microcontroller, a temperature and humidity sensor, and a wireless module with a supercapacitor as the power storage. A low-power algorithm and Internet of Things system were implemented to reduce the total ener... [more]

A theoretical framework to implement multi-sensor data fusion methods for kinematic quantities is proposed. All methods defined through the framework allow the combination of signals obtained from position, velocity and acceleration sensors addressing the same target, and improvement in the observation of the kinematics of the target. Differently from several alternative methods, the considered ones need no dynamic and/or error models to operate and can be implemented with low computational burden. In fact, they gain measurements by summing filtered versions of the heterogeneous kinematic quantities. In particular, in the case of position measurement, the use of filters with finite impulse responses, all characterized by finite gain throughout the bandwidth, in place of straightforward time-integrative operators, prevents the drift that is typically produced by the offset and low-frequency noise affecting velocity and acceleration data. A simulated scenario shows that the adopted metho... [more]

With the Internet of things and various information and communication technologies, a city can manage its assets in a smarter way, constituting the urban development vision of a smart city [...]

A laudable goal toward achieving autonomous internet of things (IoT) devices would be to use the same circuitry for communication and harvesting energy. One way to achieve it is through simultaneous lightwave and power transfer (SLIPT) that consists of using solar cells to harvest energy and receive information signals. Here, a SLIPT-based system that uses a large area solar panel to harvest energy from light sources and decode data signals is designed. The designed system is equipped with an infrared sensor used to detect the movements of an unmanned aerial vehicle. We equally discuss the wide-scale deployment of IoT devices with SLIPT capability.

Islanding detection is one of the conditions necessary for the safe operation of the microgrid. The detection technology should provide the ability to differentiate islanded operations from power grid disturbances effectively. Given that it is difficult to set the fault threshold using the passive detection method, and because the traditional active detection method affects the output power quality, a microgrid islanding detection method based on the Sliding Window Discrete Fourier Transform (SDFT)-Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network optimized by an attention mechanism is proposed. In this paper, the inverter output current and voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) are transformed by the SDFT. The positive sequence, zero sequence, and negative sequence components of voltage and current harmonics are calculated and reconstructed by adopting the symmetrical component method (SCM). Meanwhile, the current and voltage are decomposed into a mo... [more]

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) can provide information about the internal state of fuel cells, which makes EIS an important tool for fuel cell fault diagnosis. However, high cost, large volume, and poor scalability are limitations of existing EIS measurement equipment. In this study, a multi-channel online fuel cell EIS measurement device was designed. In this device, based on multi-phase interleaved Boost topology and average current control, an excitation source, which can output 1~500 Hz, 10 A sinusoidal excitation current was designed and verified by model simulation. Then, based on the quadrature vector digital lock-in amplifier (DLIA) algorithm, an impedance measuring module that can achieve precise online impedance measurement and calculation was designed. A prototype was then built for the experiment. According to the experiment test, the amplitude error of the excitation source is less than 1.8%, and the frequency error is less than 0.3%. Compared with the refere... [more]

The rational use of energy systems is one of the main discussions in sustainability in the 21st century. Water pumping systems are one of the most significant consumers of electricity in urban systems, whether for urban water supply, sewage, or use in vertical buildings. Thus, this work aims to present Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies applied in buildings’ water pumping systems, focusing on energy efficiency, supervision, and control of the pumping system. The work involves four steps: (i) identifying the existing I4.0 technologies and (ii) mapping the possibilities of applying Industry 4.0 technologies in building pumping systems. The study includes the analysis of (16) articles published in journals between 2018 and June 2021 to identify I4.0 technologies cited in the publications. It identified and grouped eighteen (18) technologies based on twenty-two (22) terms observed in the papers. The study classified the identified technologies into three possible applications in a building w... [more]

To combat global warming, “carbon neutrality” has gradually become a consensus. Some countries have constructed domestic and regional carbon trading markets, and links to global carbon markets are receiving increasing attention. Blue carbon, an important component of nature-based solutions (NbS), has not received the attention it deserves and is still isolated from the carbon trading market. Based on summarizing the existing achievements of blockchain application in carbon trading, this paper analyzes how to make each participating body provide services in the process of blue carbon production, circulation and trading, and designs the architectural diagram of the blue carbon system under peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions based on the theoretical framework of blockchain 3.0. Utilizing the advantages of decentralization, high transparency and non-tamperability of blockchain, we can realize a highly efficient, low-cost and intelligent blue carbon trading management system. Thus, we can make... [more]