Page 198 - From Smart Grid to Internet of Energy

174 From smart grid to internet of energy

IEEE 802.15.4, which is formed to empower short-range applications with both
low power consumption and low data speeds, is the most commonly preferred
standard for the WSN systems. The well-known application areas of the WSNs
are smart homes, smart cities, smart grids (SGs), smart environments, environ-
mental surveillance, internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, vehicular ad hoc
networks (VANETs), machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, cyber
physical systems (CPSs), healthcare monitoring and military investigation
[1–7]. The WSN systems may be used in healthcare systems for observing status
of patients whereas they may be utilized in environmental surveillance systems
to monitor real-time ecological conditions. On the other hand, they can be used
to manage home appliances through mobile devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets)
remotely. Another crucial application area of the WSNs is in the SGs that are
assumed as the transformation of the traditional power grid systems. A typical
SG system, which includes billions of sensors and smart meters (SMs), aims to
present improvement on power quality and more efficiency against to power
consumption demands. In the SG systems, there is no requirement for human
intervention to manage generation, transmission and distribution stages of
power systems since various powerful services are provided by the WSNs. Tra-
ditional power systems are mostly based on the use of wired networks. Hence,
only certain regions can be covered owing to the limitations of the network
scheme. Otherwise, the WSNs can be utilized in all places without any limita-
tion. By perceiving several critical characteristics of power units such as vibra-
tion, pressure, light, temperature and sound, the WSN nodes can additionally
inform the control and management center of power systems before a fault
occurs. Thus, crucial problems that may give rise to significant issues affecting
power quality of users and efficiency of the power generation systems can be
prevented through measures taken by the service providers. Furthermore, the
WSNs utilized in the SGs can monitor transmission and distribution layers of
the power systems, which present advantage to efficiently handle demand man-
agement requirements in utility grids. The energy theft, fault detection and insu-
lation breakdown issues can be also prevented by adapting WSN applications
into the SGs, which improves the management and operating characteristics of
the SGs compared to traditional power grids [8].
The SGs associate information and communication technology (ICT) with
conventional power grids in order to provide more efficient, secure and flexible
power grid system where the observation and management requirements of
energy generation systems and customer demands can be simply handled [9].
The fundamental components of the SGs are the SMs and sensors that are spread
over the entire network to enable peak value detection of electricity utilization
for the purpose of demand response management (DRM). In addition, security
is so crucial concern for the SGs and smart environments such as smart homes,
smart cities. Hence, the utilization of secure communication systems among
system components and customers should be ensured in these environments.
Nonetheless, real-time monitoring and device management can be realized