Emerging Smart Grid
As mentioned above, the electrical grid is expected to evolve to a new grid paradigm--smart grid, an enhancement of the 20th century electrical grid. The traditional electrical grids are generally used to carry power from a few central generators to a large number of users or customers. In contrast, the new emerging smart grid uses two-way flows of electricity and information to create an automated and distributed advanced energy delivery network.
Many research projects have been conducted to explore the concept of smart grid. According to a newest survey on smart grid, the research is mainly focused on three systems in smart grid- the infrastructure system, the management system, and the protection system.
The infrastructure system is the energy, information, and communication infrastructure underlying of the smart grid that supports 1) advanced electricity generation, delivery, and consumption; 2) advanced information metering, monitoring, and management; and 3) advanced communication technologies. In the transition from the conventional power grid to smart grid, we will replace a physical infrastructure with a digital one. The needs and changes present the power industry with one of the biggest challenges it has ever faced.
The management system is the subsystem in smart grid that provides advanced management and control services. Most of the existing works aim to improve energy efficiency, demand profile, utility, cost, and emission, based on the infrastructure by using optimization, machine learning, and game theory. Within the advanced infrastructure framework of smart grid, more and more new management services and applications are expected to emerge and eventually revolutionize consumers' daily lives.
The protection system is the subsystem in smart grid that provides advanced grid reliability analysis, failure protection, and security and privacy protection services. We must note that the advanced infrastructure used in smart grid on one hand empowers us to realize more powerful mechanisms to defend against attacks and handle failures, but on the other hand, opens up many new vulnerabilities. For example, NIST pointed out that the major benefit provided by smart grid, the ability to get richer data to and from customer smart meters and other electric devices, is also its Achilles' heel from a privacy viewpoint. The obvious privacy concern is that the energy use information stored at the meter acts as an information rich side channel. This information could be mined and retrieved by interested parties to reveal personal information such as individual's habits, behaviors, activities, and even beliefs.
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