Integrated ICT framework for distribution network with decentralized energy resources: Prototype, design and development

Chapter 12 - ICT Requirements and Recent Developments

Large scale Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure utilization is the foundation of smart grid and smart market scenarios. Thus, power system exposure to ICT infrastructure contingencies is naturally increasing. The paper at hand focuses on those types of ICT contingencies that may potentially affect transmission level reserve requirements. The analysis indicates that these contingencies are characterized by large scale power outages at very low probability. The German 2020 power generation scenario serves as study case for integrating the resulting risk of ICT failure into the calculation of reserve requirements using the method of recursive convolution. Calculated reserves with and without consideration of selected ICT contingencies are compared. The paper highlights the need for ICT infrastructure concepts that aim at safety by design from the beginning. It concludes by summarizing identified `safety-by-design' criteria that merit further investigation.

Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure plays a critical role in many aspects of the society. While ICTs contribute to climate-related responses and adaptive practices, much less is known about the impacts that climate change may have on ICT itself. Drawing on knowledge in the literature and findings elicited from industrial workshop conversations and case studies, this paper attempts to provide a review of available evidence of climate impacts on the UK’s ICT infrastructure. This research shows that, although ICTs are resilient to climate impacts, in part due to the rapid refresh rate of equipment, ICTs are vulnerable to a number of future climate risks. The criticality of ICTs to other infrastructure sectors implies that any disruption to ICTs could result in multisectoral cascade failures. This paper also explores the potential for strategies to adapt ICTs to be more resilient to extreme weather and changes in climate, discusses some of the opportunities that climate change may offer and identifies some areas for further research.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure for collaboration with regional universities and colleges, and management are discussed. The infrastructure consisted of Moodle servers at each institution, Moodle Lite, backup servers, test servers, a Video On Demand (VOD) server, a video meeting system, and other supporting systems. ICT infrastructure was designed and managed by a committee in charge of the collaboration. Members of the committee consisted of fifteen faculty members from each institution in the collaboration. Five technical support staff members were employed for managing the infrastructure.

The students nowadays are more friendly with tech devices. So, to make it less boring need to start innovative ways that involve technology. Teaching via ICT tools have the potential to make a change in the academic sector. It is a dynamic learning method. It provides more benefits as compared to the traditional blackboard and chalks learning. The whole process of education can sometimes feel tedious for students. In this digital era, ICT use in the classroom is important for giving students opportunities to learn and apply the required 21st century skills. Hence studying the issues and challenges related to ICT use in teaching and learning can assist teachers in overcoming the obstacles and become successful technology users. With the advent of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in education, teachers form their own beliefs about the role of ICT as a teaching tool, the value of ICT for student learning outcomes and their own personal confidence and competency. Barriers exist in integrating ICT in teaching and learning. The barriers are extrinsic to the teacher and include lack of resources, time, access and technical support.

BackgroundDespite worldwide efforts, control of COVID-19 transmission and its after effects is lagging. As seen from the cases of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, worldwide crises associated with infections and their side effects are likely to recur in the future because of extensive international interactions. Consequently, there is an urgent need to identify the factors that can mitigate disease spread. We observed that the transmission speed and severity of consequences of COVID-19 varied substantially across countries, signaling the need for a country-level investigation.ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate how distancing-enabling information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and medical ICT infrastructure, and related policies have affected the cumulative number of confirmed cases, fatality rate, and initial speed of transmission across different countries.MethodsWe analyzed the determinants of COVID-19 transmission during the relatively early days of the pandemic by conducting regression analysis based on our data for country-level characteristics, including demographics, culture, ICT infrastructure, policies, economic status, and transmission of COVID-19. To gain further insights, we conducted a subsample analysis for countries with low population density.ResultsOur full sample analysis showed that implied telehealth policy, which refers to the lack of a specific telehealth-related policy but presence of a general eHealth policy, was associated with lower fatality rates when controlled for cultural characteristics (P=.004). In particular, the fatality rate for countries with an implied telehealth policy was lower than that for others by 2.7%. Interestingly, stated telehealth policy, which refers to the existence of a specified telehealth policy, was found to not be associated with lower fatality rates (P=.30). Furthermore, countries with a government-run health website had 36% fewer confirmed cases than those without it, when controlled for cultural characteristics (P=.03). Our analysis further revealed that the interaction between implied telehealth policy and training ICT health was significant (P=.01), suggesting that implied telehealth policy may be more effective when in-service training on ICT is provided to health professionals. In addition, credit card ownership, as an enabler of convenient e-commerce transactions and distancing, showed a negative association with fatality rates in the full sample analysis (P=.04), but not in the subsample analysis (P=.76), highlighting that distancing-enabling ICT is more useful in densely populated countries.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate important relationships between national traits and COVID-19 infections, suggesting guidelines for policymakers to minimize the negative consequences of pandemics. The findings suggest physicians’ autonomous use of medical ICT and strategic allocation of distancing-enabling ICT infrastructure in countries with high population density to maximize efficiency. This study also encourages further research to investigate the role of health policies in combatting COVID-19 and other pandemics.

BackgroundGood health decisions depend on one’s ability to think critically about health claims and make informed health choices. Young people can learn these skills through school-based interventions, but learning resources need to be low-cost and built around lessons that can fit into existing curricula. As a first step to developing and evaluating digital learning resources that are feasible to use in Kenyan secondary schools, we conducted a context analysis to explore interest in critical thinking for health, map where critical thinking about health best fits in the curriculum, explore conditions for introducing new learning resources, and describe the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure available for teaching and learning.MethodsWe employed a qualitative descriptive approach. We interviewed 15 key informants, carried out two focus group discussions, observed ICT conditions in five secondary schools, reviewed seven documents, and conducted an online catalog of ICT infrastructure in all schools (n=250) in Kisumu County. Participants included national curriculum developers, national ICT officers, teachers, and national examiners. We used a framework analysis approach to analyze data and report findings.FindingsAlthough critical thinking is a core competence in the curriculum, critical thinking about health is not currently taught in Kenyan secondary schools. Teachers, health officials, and curriculum developers recognized the importance of teaching critical thinking about health in secondary schools. Stakeholders agreed that Informed Health Choices learning resources could be embedded in nine subjects. The National Institute of Curriculum Development regulates resources for learning; the development of new resources requires collaboration and approval from this body. Most schools do not use ICT for teaching, and for those few that do, the use is limited. Implementation of Kenya’s ICT policy framework for schools faces several challenges which include inadequate ICT infrastructure, poor internet connectivity, and teachers’ lack of training and experience.ConclusionTeaching critical thinking about health is possible within the current Kenyan lower secondary school curriculum, but the learning resources will need to be designed for inclusion in and across existing subjects. The National ICT Plan and Vision for 2030 provides an opportunity for scale-up and integration of technology in teaching and learning environments, which can enable future use of digital resources in schools. However, given the current ICT condition in schools in the country, digital learning resources should be designed to function with limited ICT infrastructure, unstable Internet access, and for use by teachers with low levels of experience using digital technology.

Developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) achieved new trends such as smart grid (SG). Innovations in ICT bring challenges to our security and expectations of privacy. ICT has such a big attack surface that possess increased risks from cyber-attacks in smart grid. Actually, as a critical infrastructure, the smart grid is more sensitive to cyber-attacks, as monitoring and control of smart grid can be realized over standard internet-based protocols. Therefore, an attacker may achieve financial cost to the service and create loss of electric resources, through breaching the real-time balance between energy production and consumption, by controlling data produced by the smart entities. Therefore, in this study, bagging ensemble classifier is evaluated for intrusion detection in a smart grid with a benchmark data. Experimental results have revealed the practicality of Bagging ensemble classifier by realizing a better performance for the cyber security threats in a smart grid environment. The results indicated that the suggested Bagging ensemble classifier with REP Tree achieved a total classification accuracy of 99.94%.

Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure plays an important role to realize the full potential of Smart Grid applications. Smart grids utilize ICT entities to enhance efficiency, reliability and sustainability of power generation and distribution network. Majority of the architectures proposed hitherto focus only on a specific architectural aspect, like communication, storage, processing requirement, etc. Recent studies have shown that lack of knowledge on which architecture best satisfies certain information management requirements has hindered large scale smart grid deployments. In this paper, we investigate the cost-benefit analysis of four data processing architectures for various applications in smart grid. We introduce several key cost indicators to analyze hierarchical data processing architectures for the smart grid. In our evaluation, we consider realistic deployments for both dense and sparse environments. Results reported here are significant for smart grid designers, who can use them to discern the architecture that best fits the system requirements.

Power systems and especially Smart Grids increasingly apply Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for exchanging information over wide area networks. Here, the performance of the ICT has become crucial for the development of new Wide Area Monitoring, Protection And Control (WAMPAC) [1] systems. In this context, simulations are a common way for evaluation, but power systems and communication networks are usually analysed with dedicated simulators. Therefore a combined simulation for analysing the dynamics and mutual impacts of both domains is needed. In this paper we present a generic hybrid simulation architecture based on the IEEE standard 1516 - High Level Architecture [2] to enable a combined simulation of power systems and communication networks in an integrated simulation environment. First, we introduce our hybrid simulator architecture, along with the communication and synchronization process between sub-simulators. Secondly, we present our communication networks architecture for modelling the network traffic caused by the information transmitted by control and protection algorithms within the electrical transmission system. Finally, we introduce our modelling approach for mapping entities between the power systems and the communication networks. For this purpose, we introduce our concept of a Substation Data Processing Unit, which represents entities on substation level by providing an IEC 61850 [3] based model for mapping logical functions for local process control, implementing decentralized protection and control algorithms and providing additional components for the power systems (e.g Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) [4]).

Due to global warming problems and increasing environmental pollution, there is a strong tendency to install and apply renewable energy power plants (REPPs) around the world. On the other hand, with the increasing development of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures, power systems are using these infrastructures to act as smart grids. In fact, future modern power systems should be considered as smart grids with many small and large scale REPPs. One of the main problems and challenges of the REPPs is uncertainty and fluctuation of electrical power generation. Accordingly, a suitable solution can be combination of different types of REPPs. So, the penetration rate of large-scale wind-PV farms (LWPF) is expected to increase sharply in the coming years. Given that the LWPFs are added to the grid or will replace fossil fuel power plants, they should be able to play the important roles of synchronous generators such as power low-frequency oscillation (LFO) damping. In this paper, an LFO damping system is suggested for a LWPF, based on a phasor measurement unit (PMU)-based fractional-order proportional–integral–derivative (FOPID) controller with wide range of stability area and proper robustness to many power system uncertainties. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated under different operating conditions in a benchmark smart system.

Today’s career and technical education (CTE) teachers and trainers are subjected to a number of challenges caused by work systems and processes that are science and technology-based. Furthermore, the advent of information and communication technologies (ICT) and characteristics of Millennial students has greatly influenced their roles. This chapter examines the impact of ICT and influence of today’s students on the role of the 21st Century CTE teachers and trainers. The chapter describes information and communication technologies, application of ICT in education and training, characteristics of millennium students; contextual challenges and role changes for today’s teachers and trainers, and provides suggestions to integrate ICT with instruction.

PurposeTo protect information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and resources against poor cyber hygiene behaviours, organisations commonly require internal users to confirm they will abide by an ICT Code of Conduct. Before commencing enrolment, university students sign ICT policies, however, individuals can ignore or act contrary to these policies. This study aims to evaluate whether students can apply ICT Codes of Conduct and explores viable approaches for ensuring that students understand how to act ethically and in accordance with such codes.Design/methodology/approachThe authors designed a between-subjects experiment involving 260 students’ responses to five scenario-pairs that involve breach/non-breach of a university’s ICT policy following a priming intervention to heighten awareness of ICT policy or relevant ethical principles, with a control group receiving no priming.FindingsThis study found a significant difference in students’ responses to the breach versus non-breach cases, indicating their ability to apply the ICT Code of Conduct. Qualitative comments revealed the priming materials influenced their reasoning.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ priming interventions were inadequate for improving breach recognition compared to the control group. More nuanced and targeted priming interventions are suggested for future studies.Practical implicationsAppropriate application of ICT Code of Conduct can be measured by collecting student/employee responses to breach/non-breach scenario pairs based on the Code and embedded with ethical principles.Social implicationsShared awareness and protection of ICT resources.Originality/valueCompliance with ICT Codes of Conduct by students is under-investigated. This study shows that code-based scenarios can measure understanding and suggest that targeted priming might offer a non-resource intensive training approach.

Smart Grid is referred as next generation power system, and considered new revolutionary changes in existing traditional power system. Information Communication and Technologies (ICT) Integration in power grid enhance efficiency and reliability of future power systems. Power sector requires a secure distributed intelligence and customer demand based response along with an effective reusability of renewable energy resources. Despite, many silent features of Smart Grid, cyber attack risks are threatening the smart grid security. Malicious activities could be harm smart meters in distributed system and take out the power system in simulated attacks. Cyber attacks against Critical Infrastructures, like as Smart Grids, are especially dangerous, because they are tailored to disrupt assets, which are essential to the functioning of the society as whole. Critical Infrastructure sectors include Transportation, Communication and Technology utilities. Among these, the power system is possibly most critical, due to its strong dependency of all other Critical Infrastructures and involvement of Information Communication and Technology. In this paper, we illustrate introduction of smart grid, cyber attack. Current smart grid scenario in India and other countries in section I section II includes related work of cyber security and standard for smart grid while section III illustrated risk assessment, section IV elaborated proposed risk assessment framework and in last we conclude and describe further scope in this field paper in section V

Analysis and simulation of power systems are crucial for a successful deployment of power system networks. However, introduction of smart grid concepts and integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in operation of power systems has been a challenging topic for studying of future power systems. In this paper complexities related to simulation of smart grids and its requirement for research and development studies have been discussed. In addition to that, a real-time simulation framework for system protection in smart grids has been established to verify the simulation results. The proposed methodology is based on co-simulation of power system components and integration of ICT components in real-time. In summary, the outcomes of this research can be highlighted to address feasibility studies in smart grid operation and capability to integrate Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) for reliable system protections.