Improving Demand Response Implementation in Distribution Network by Data Mining in Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Demand side management(DSM) is one of the most important concepts in present restructured market, which tries to maximize benefits for both suppliers and consumers. DSM could be implemented in two ways: model-driven and data-driven methods. in the first case, a model is provided by using dataset related to previous records and in the second case, analysis is done by real-time data. In this way, energy efficiency(EE) and demand response(DR) are two famous policies whose performance could show satisfactory and persuasive results, so, for this case are of interest. Appropriate implementation of these programs necessitates sufficient knowledge about consumers' behavior in their electricity energy usage. In recent years, with advent of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), which created proper communication infrastructure, the access to real-time data of the grid is provided. So, the required data for data-driven DSM is available now. By this hypothesis, the goal of this paper is providing more complete and accurate information about consumers' behavior in consumption, to identify the susceptible consumers for DR and EE policies. This goal is achieved by simultaneously applying the data-mining algorithms for time-series analysis and the entropy index. The susceptibility of customers for proposing tariffs is analyzed too. For evaluation of the procedure, a real dataset, provided from the Irish Social Science Data Archive(ISSDA) is used.

The energy policies and environmental issues require novel solutions to generate electricity in a challenging and efficient way. The sustainable and reliable grid operations are related to demand management as well as generation. One of the most important requirements to build smarter grids is including smart metering to the power system. The smart grid is not only considered to provide essential energy infrastructure but also a key concept to increase the energy efficiency owing to control and management opportunities brought by communication features. The prominent technologies of smart meters enable operational equipment on the distribution network in addition to conventional metering operations. The load management approach that is defined with several terms as demand side management, demand side response, or demand control is required for the systematic management of loads on distribution networks. There is a wide variety of smart meters and operation structures are available in industry. The automatic meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) are the most widely known smart metering infrastructure. Although they are similar in many aspects, they differ in communication and metering processes. The network structures and gateway organisations used in smart metering will also be discussed in this presentation. Another outstanding device that is being widely integrated into the transmission and distribution networks is Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs). Although the PMUs are operated in wide networks of transmission lines, it is considered that they will be required to be used in medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) in a short while. The contents of this presentation will cover the topics summarized above and their industrial and scientific application examples.

A computer worm is malicious software that can spread rapidly between interconnected devices and perform malicious actions. In an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), smart meters may communicate in an ad-hoc fashion to perform many functionalities like remote metering and demand response. However, the AMI is susceptible to cyber-physical threats caused by malware like worms. The speed at which worms propagate in the AMI affects the physical consequences of cyber attacks. In this paper, worm propagation in the AMI is simulated and a probabilistic model is derived. This model can be used to estimate the time required to infect N meters in the AMI and accordingly predict possible physical consequences.

Active Distribution Networks (ADNs) are modern and intelligent power distribution systems that integrate renewable energy sources and advanced control technologies to provide reliable, secure, and efficient electricity supply. The traditional power distribution networks are designed to deliver electricity in a one-way flow from the transmission system to the customers. In contrast, ADN enables two-way power flow between the distribution network and customers, allowing them to become active participants in the electricity system. The key technology behind ADN includes advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), Distribution Automation (DA), and energy storage systems (ESS). AMI provides real-time data on electricity consumption, generation, and distribution, enabling efficient load management and demand response. Other key technologies of ADN include renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaic (PV), Wind turbines and small-scale hydroelectricity. These sources are connected to the distribution network through power electronic interfaces that convert the DC output of the renewable sources into AC for distribution. Smart grid technologies such as microgrids, virtual power plants, and energy management systems are also integrated into ADN to improve grid stability and resilience. ADNs have the potential to transform the electricity system by enabling more efficient, sustainable, and reliable energy systems that can better serve the needs of consumers and society. Thus, ADN is expected to become a critical technology in achieving a cleaner and more sustainable energy future.

As the core component of the smart grid, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is responsible for automated billing, demand response, load forecasting, management, etc. The jamming attack poses a serious threat to the AMI communication networks, especially the neighborhood area network where wireless technologies are widely adopted to connect a tremendous amount of smart meters. An attacker can easily build a jammer using a software-defined radio and jam the wireless communications between smart meters and local controllers, causing failures of on-line monitoring and state estimation. Accurate jammer localization is the first step for defending AMIs against jamming attacks. In this paper, we propose JamCatcher, a mobile jammer localization scheme for defending the AMI. Unlike existing jammer localization schemes, which only consider stationary jammers and usually require a high density of anchor nodes, the proposed scheme utilizes a tracker and can localize a mobile jammer with sparse anchor nodes. The time delay of data transmission is also considered, and the jammer localization process is divided into two stages, i.e., far-field chasing stage and near-field capturing stage. Different localization algorithms are developed for each stage. The proposed method has been tested with data from both simulation and real-world experiment. The results demonstrate that JamCatcher outperforms existing jammer localization algorithms with a limited number of anchor nodes in the AMI scenario.

In this paper, we consider a compressive sensing (CS) based compression method for aggregated power signals of smart meters in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). If detailed power signals with high sampling rates are available for energy management systems, advanced services such as demand response and power disaggregation can be provided. However, typical smart meters have limited bandwidth resources and may require aggressive data compression for supporting the intensively sampled data. In order to alleviate the overhead for the detailed power signal, a CS based compression scheme is proposed in this study to take advantage of the sparsity of power signals based on the appliance load superposition modeling. Through simulations, the CS based compression schemes demonstrate improved energy efficiency while maintaining good reconstruction performance, compared to the wavelet based compression.

The protection of smart meters (SMs) from cyberattacks is of utmost importance because SMs in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) are physically unprotected and produce a large amount of sensitive data. Due to scalability, the SMs are small-sized and low-cost devices having low computational capabilities. The algorithms that are designed to complete the security requirements of SMs should be lightweight. To address this issue, this paper proposes a lightweight security solution to address the man-in-the-middle attack, data tempering, and blockchain-based data provenance. Received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is used to generate link fingerprints, which are used along with pseudo-random nonce to secure AMI. The proposed algorithm detects the involvement of adversarial node or meter tempering by computing other values along with 0 and 1 as the average of consecutive RSSI and difference between the RSSI of connected static SMs. Pearson correlation coefficient ( $\rho $ ) of 0.9102 is achieved when no adversarial node is present in between the connected SMs having mobility in one or both SMs. Negative or approximately equal to zero values of $\rho $ are computed when the adversary is present in the AMI or any of the SM in the AMI is forged. For blockchain-based data provenance, all the hash values of the packet header are 100% matched with the hash functions present at the data concentrator unit (DCU), which shows no adversary’s involvement in AMI. For cases when the adversary is in the AMI, hash functions show no match with the hash values present at the DCU.

A novel cluster-specific analysis framework for demand-side management and net metering using smart meter data

This work presents techniques for obtaining a reliable electrical load-curve based on comparative analysis between the different compressed sensing algorithms. Therefore, the goal is implementing compressed sensing (CS) when a wireless heterogeneous network, that exchanges information between electrical enterprise and smart meters, has a fault. Then, the data cannot be sent totally, and we would have the data only of some smart meters; thus, using the adequate technique of compressed sensing is possible to the reconstruction of load-curve required for generating demand response (DR) with the minimum error. In the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) there may be communication faults; then, it is necessary to have other forms for estimating the demand response using few measurements. In addition, using a dictionary based on the DCT transform does not mean that the sea is the best option for the representation of a signal. For example, among other results, in this work we obtain an average of percent root mean square difference nearest to the 5% in relation with a Gaussian function or Wavelet basis with values between 1.4 and 1.7% average PRD.

The demand for enhanced energy management systems is being driven by the desire for sustainable development and the rapid evolution of energy consumption patterns. This study examines the potential for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and smart meters to enhance the efficacy of energy transmission and consumption. Smart meters enable customers to monitor their energy consumption in real time, thereby increasing their awareness of their actions and motivating them to adopt more environmentally favorable behaviors. These technologies facilitate two-way communication between utilities and end consumers when integrated with AMI. These features include demand response, automatic invoicing, dynamic pricing, and power outage monitoring. The integration of data analytics and the Internet of Things by AMI enhances the environmental sustainability, operational efficiency, and reliability of the grid. This paper investigates the design, advantages, disadvantages, and potential future improvements of smart energy systems that are powered by AMI and smart meters. We are of the opinion that these technologies will be beneficial in the creation of an intelligent and resilient energy system

With the substantial increase in implementation of green technology across all sectors worldwide to overcome energy loss, attributes such as reliability, efficiency, productivity, and security become very crucial for a system. Especially with the integration of IoT and smart features into a system alongside the evolution of Internet, cybersecurity and privacy of an individual component should be taken into important consideration. A smart grid comprises wireless network components exposed to cyber-attacks, smart meters being one the most vulnerable part of an advanced metering infrastructure. An advanced metering infrastructure enables two-way communication for automatic meter readings (AMR) and transmits data through wireless network. To counter cyber-attacks afflicting the network of AMI and functioning of a smart meter, additional intrusion detection methods are implemented into the grid network. The review includes cybersecurity concerns associated with smart meters along with an in-depth insight to some major cyber-attacks and their aftermath.KeywordsCybersecurityCyber-attacks advanced metering infrastructure (AMI)Smart metersDenial-of-service (DoS)False data injection (FDI)Man-in-the-middle (MitM)

In the past two decades, interest in demand response (DR) schemes has grown exponentially. The need for DR has been driven by sustainability (environmental and socioeconomic) and cost-efficiency. The main premise of DR is to influence the timing and magnitude of consumption to match energy supply by sharing the benefits with consumers, ultimately aiming to optimize generation cost. As such, the first and primary enabler to DR was the establishment of contemporary electricity markets. Increased proliferation of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and microgeneration further motivated the participation of consumers as active players in the market, popularizing DR and the wider category of Demand-Side Management (DSM) programs. Smart Grids (SG) have been an enabler to modern DR schemes, with smart metering data providing input to the underlying optimization and forecasting tools. The more recent emergence of the Internet of Energy (IoE), seen as the evolution of SG, is driven by increased Internet of Things (IoT)-enabling and high penetration of scalable and distributed energy resources. In this IoE paradigm being a fully decentralized network of energy prosumers, DR will continue to be a vital aspect of the grid in future Transactive Energy (TE) schemes, aiming for a more user-centered, energy-efficient, cost-saving, energy management approach. This paper investigates original motives and identifies the first mentions of DR in the legislative and scientific literature. Afterwards, the evolution of DR is tracked over the past four decades, attempting to study the co-influence of legislation and research by performing a thorough statistical analysis of research trends on the IEEE Xplore digital library. Finally, conclusions are made as to the current state of DR and future prospects of DR are discussed.

In the smart grid, Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) are used to obtain huge amount of data sampled from the electrical users for the various advanced applications (e.g., demand side response and gird operation). However, there exist the leakage risk of users' privacy in the smart data collection process. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a smart meter data encryption method based on the random forest (RF) algorithm and aggregate signature method. Firstly, the electrical data is decomposed into the components with different time scales by using the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method. Then the RF algorithm is used to extract the electrical consumption behavior as the criterion for judging the data authenticity of AMI. The components and features of electrical information are regarded as the data of AMI that need to be transmitted. Secondly, a novel framework combined with the disposable pseudonym algorithm, aggregate signature algorithm and homomorphic encryption Paillier algorithm is designed to encrypting the transmitted data. Finally, the numerical results show that compared with the traditional machine learning methods, the proposed RF algorithm improves the classification accuracy of data authenticity by more than 2.89%. Moreover, compared with the traditional encryption methods, the time cost of the proposed method can be saved by more than 4.5%. Hence, the privacy of users' information can be protected more effectively.

Smart grid is considered as next generation power system which performs automated control and monitoring operations to make it self-resilience. Advanced Metering Infrastructure is an essential part of smart grid which enables two-way communication thereby providing real-time communication link between consumer and grid operators. Emergence of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) at end user make AMI's operation more challenging. Smart Meters (SMs) are key components in AMI that sends Power Consumption Data (PCD) of home appliances to Distributed System Operator (DSO). PCD received at DSO can be used for real time pricing applications, real time energy consumption, automatic diagnostic, daily energy metering and tasks such as billing, monitoring, planning and predicting of energy usage. In the context of selling of excess energy generated at DER's to the grid, SMs participates in Demand Response (DR) applications to perform energy trading. Revealing PCD of a home leads to privacy breach, hence it is necessary to achieve secure communication between SM and DSO. At the same time, it is essential to make energy trading transparent. To address this issue, this paper proposes a cloud based private blockchain framework to accomplish secure communication between SM and DSO without compromising privacy. Furthermore, trust between SM and DSO is achieved through smart contracts. Performance evaluation of the proposed blockchain shows its applicability to the said environment.

Internet of Things connects people and things at any time and in any place. Smart grid is one of the promising applications of Internet of Things. Advanced metering infrastructure is one of the most significant components in smart grid which collects data from smart meters and sends the collected data to the utility center to be analyzed and stored. To implement two-way communication between smart grid components, machine-to-machine communications has a great potential. In this paper, we propose a machine-to-machine architecture for advanced metering infrastructure in Internet of Things-based smart grid and focus on finding the optimum number of collectors based on two metrics: collectors' cost and packet delay. We model advanced metering infrastructure as a queuing system and derive an expression for packet delay. We also propose a newperformance metric, the product of cost and delay (CD), so that by minimizing it, we can find the optimum number of collectors. The simulation results indicate correctness of our theoretical model and show that we can achieve a balance between cost and delay.