Providing Intelligence to Power Grids with IoT

Smart grids are capable of providing a simultaneous view of consumption and production, enabling more efficient and sustainable energy management. In this way, power grids with IoT are consolidating as the definitive solution in the network management of the future.

Thanks to technologies such as IoT, the electricity sector can now become smarter to respond to an increasingly connected, electrified and competitive future. Electric power has been the engine of industrial and social transformation over the last century, becoming a basic commodity for society. The electricity sector has been evolving throughout this time, and in recent years it is undergoing a major transformation, marked by key trends such as decarbonisation, digitalisation and decentralisation.

The incorporation of energy from renewable sources into the electricity system, as well as the incorporation of digital technology and improved communications between systems, are enabling a new way of understanding and efficiently managing electricity. This is what we know as smart grids.

Smart Grids in the electricity industry

In order to carry out this transformation (ranging from buildings, cities, to industrial processes), it is essential to focus on technologies that ensure maximum efficiency in the use of energy and that, in turn, are capable of creating a cleaner and more reliable energy infrastructure. In addition, an efficient and quality energy solution will translate into cheaper energy. This is where Smart Grids come into play and are changing the entire business model.

Smart grids are able to provide a simultaneous view of consumption and production enabling more efficient management, as well as the adoption of preventive and predictive maintenance strategies by companies.

The application of digital technologies such as IoT, has allowed the electricity sector to improve communications in both directions (consumer / distribution company) and has allowed above all to predict both energy consumption and production capacity.

It is a change of model and the line dividing energy producers and consumers has been broken. The sector is now moving towards a more flexible ecosystem. All this will allow better visibility of grid usage and better control of energy systems.

Smart Grids have therefore become the emblem of transformation. But all this transformation brings with it a series of challenges and constraints on the companies involved that cannot be overlooked.

At the technical level, the electricity sector faces the dual challenge of increased complexity and increased demand pressure on an aging infrastructure, which is not designed to handle the diversification of energy sources and the high variability of energy. At the same time, the sector is expected to protect the environment, provide affordable energy services and ensure the security and reliability of energy supply.

Among the limitations is an industry, like many others, marked by regulation that delays innovation and with a high resistance to technological change.

Related article: Smartgrids, the future of the electricity industry

IoT as an answer to the challenges of the electricity industry

The IoT has positioned itself as the key technology for the transition to Smart Grids and other Utilities such as the Water Industry, health, transportation or cities (Smart Cities). As the smart grid has evolved, IoT has positioned itself as the technology that allows each device to have a unique IP address to upload its status and download control commands over the Internet.

All this has offered great benefits to the electricity industry, among which we could highlight:

• More efficient transmission of electricity
• Faster and more efficient restoration in the event of a service interruption
• A reduction in costs and operations, and as a consequence, in the final consumer's expenses.
• A reduction in peak demand, which will also translate into lower prices.
• A large-scale integration of renewable energy systems, with their consequent environmental impact.
• Increased safety
• A leading role for the consumer

The role of companies in the evolution of Smart Grids and the new role of the energy company

While it is true that electric utilities are already working on smart grids, it requires a technical and business model evolution in which the companies move from being a traditional grid manager to play a new role as Distribution System Operator (DSO), with responsibility for coordinating the different agents that provide resources to the system and guaranteeing the secure management of the grid.

We did not want to end the article without mentioning companies such as Iberdrola, Endesa, EDP and the Cuerva Group, which are playing a fundamental role in this process of transformation and evolution of Smart Grids.

Cuerva Group's Living Lab

The Cuerva Group has created the Living Lab, where it recreates the network of 2030 in 2021 and develops projects to learn how to operate the network of the future.

Endesa's Network Digitalization Projects

Endesa has carried out important projects relating to the digitisation of distribution networks with its "Digital Twin of the Networks" Project, or the global programme for digital transformation through disruptive efficiency, an agile operational model and cutting-edge technological convergence "Digi&N Iberia".

InvodGrid, EDP's Grid Expansion Project

EDP, for its part, is digitizing its grid under the "InovGrid" project, which provides the electricity grid with intelligent equipment, where the customer plays a more active role in managing its own consumption and the distribution company faces new challenges in service quality and integration of distributed generation and the electric vehicle.

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