Page 378 - From Smart Grid to Internet of Energy

342 From smart grid to internet of energy

routers in EI that is considered as the most important component of the EI sys-
tems due to managing the energy and data flow transactions. The first research
about energy routers are reported in [15] where energy routers are responsible
for two important task as efficient scheduling for energy flow processes and
managing communications among devices in real-time. Then, different archi-
tectures of energy routers such as E-energy, energy hub and digital grid router
(DGR) have been introduced by combining information and modern communi-
cation systems [1, 16, 17].
The communication systems which are spread into information and network
systems in order to allow monitoring, controlling and management in real-time
are very important in EI concept to carry out goals of this new vision. The infor-
mation systems of EI are composed of smart sensing and computing structures
and are very critical for data collecting analyzing and managing gathered data.
The network systems of EI are responsible for connection entire devices exist-
ing in the EI system by utilizing modern wired and wireless communication
technologies such as CR, PLC, cellular communications, ZigBee, software-
defined network (SDN) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
(WiMAX). It is important to note that the combinations of these technologies
are exploited in the EI concept in order to establish a flexible and efficient struc-
ture. Even though several technologies have been adopted to SG systems, there
exist still many challenges to be solved regarding combining these communi-
cation technologies in EI concept. For instance, in order to ensure a real-time
communication infrastructure among users, there are critical requirements such
as high data rate, efficient two-way communication structures and lower latency
that is not accomplished by the SGs [1, 5]. The following subsections present
explanations for substructures of the EI concept.

9.3.1 Energy routers
The EI system presents an innovative outlook for managing both energy and
information flow together. The most important component of the EI is certainly
energy router that is taken into account as a smart management and energy
transformer device. The authors recommended in [6] that this architecture need
to firmly integrate energy flows with information transmissions. Unlike the tra-
ditional electrical equipments, this structure presents several important charac-
teristics as follows. It supports two-way energy conversion with high quality
between various types of terminals. In addition, it supports plug-and-play fea-
tures for enabling a perfect connection among electrical systems and con-
sumers. Furthermore, energy routers accomplish optimum energy
management for entire EI system [1, 18]. Researches reported in [19, 20] pro-
pose energy router systems as a bridge structure between several energy types
and loads. Different types of energy routers are introduced as energy hub and
energy interconnector as mentioned before. An energy interconnector can man-
age combinations of electricity, gas and heat transmissions whereas an energy