Connected devices are disrupting numerous industries, with power utilities being no exception. Utility companies currently face four primary challenges driven by the growth of IoT.
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Machines, controllers, HMIs, and SCADA systems are increasingly becoming cloud-connected, with vendors promising enhanced analytics and insights via their data for predictive and preventative maintenance. However, the strict quarantine policies regarding critical assets prevent power companies from utilising these new IoT features offered by machine and controller vendors.
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With the continuously decreasing costs of solar and wind power microgrids, utility companies will soon experience declining revenue from power generation. To compensate for this loss, companies must aggressively pursue new revenue streams such as home energy management as a service, energy storage as a service, and providing grid services for EV charging, peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading between homes and microgrids, microgrid-to-microgrid transfers, microgrid-to-battery connections, and home-to-battery interactions. These activities require smart metering, smart grids, and secure transactions facilitated by Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) such as IOTA. Additionally, utilities are exploring opportunities to offer smart city services to local authorities.
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For critical infrastructure like dams, the International Committee on Large Dams (ICOLD) requires real-time Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) to provide early warnings of impending dangers such as dam, rock, or tunnel collapses, allowing for the evacuation of affected individuals.
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Another emerging revenue area is EV charging in car parks. This module explores how IoT can facilitate smart charging and smart parking solutions.
Over the past three years, engineering in IoT has undergone massive changes, primarily driven by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. These tech giants have invested billions of dollars into developing IoT platforms that are easier to manage and secure. IoT edge computing has gained significant momentum in both research and deployment as the practical means for implementing IoT. Furthermore, 5G promises to transform the IoT business landscape, leading to unprecedented levels of research funding in this field. Consequently, for any practicing engineer, it is essential to understand the IoT platforms developed by major players like AWS, Google, and especially Microsoft.
However, none of the aforementioned platforms offer an exhaustive or fully comprehensive solution for scalable IoT. For instance, deploying smart meters to millions of homes requires additional technologies to secure the meters, radio networks, IoT management technology, and many other secured services. Strategy, pricing, and security for any IoT deployment must be optimal and acceptable. Given the extensive interdisciplinary knowledge required, it is difficult for any company to assemble a team capable of meeting all these requirements.
This course is a modest attempt to educate key decision-makers, developers, and security experts about the challenges, risks, and practical approaches to deploying IoT for next-generation power utility businesses.
Additionally, with scalable deployments, managing IoT services for thousands of sensors and connections is emerging as a separate engineering subject of research. This area, formally known as managed IoT services, is experiencing rapid growth because the challenges of scalable IoT are much greater than simply building them. This includes securing over-the-top firmware/software updates, managing sensor and system calibration, auto-diagnosing connection issues, narrowing down root causes of API failures, and tracking the hardware and service health of distributed systems.
Course objectives
The main objective of the course is to introduce emerging technological options, platforms, and case studies of IoT implementation in power utility companies, including smart metering, smart cars, structural health monitoring (SHM), power quality diagnosis, and smart contracts. It provides a basic introduction to all elements of IoT, such as mechanical aspects, electronics/sensor platforms, wireless and wireline protocols, mobile-to-electronics integration, mobile-to-enterprise integration, and data-analytics and control plane applications.
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IoT technology stacks: Devices, gateways, edge, edge cloud, public cloud, IoT databases, web and mobile applications for IoT, and centralized versus decentralized IoT.
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IoT ecosystem for business, third-party device management, and risk management of the entire IoT ecosystem.
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M2M wireless protocols for IoT: WiFi, SigFox, LoRa, LPWAN, Zigbee/Z-Wave, Bluetooth, ANT+: Understanding when and where to use each.
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Fundamentals of IoT gateways: Risks, management, and ecosystem.
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Mobile/Desktop/Web apps for registration, data acquisition, and control. Overview of available M2M data acquisition platforms for IoT: AWS IoT, Azure IoT, Google IoT.
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Security issues and solutions for IoT: A review of security across all technology stacks.
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Enterprise IoT platforms such as Microsoft Azure IoT Suites, AWS IoT, Google IoT, and Siemens MindSphere.
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Smart metering, Open Smart Grid Protocols (OSGP), ANSI C 2.18 protocols, NIST Standard for HAN (Home Area Network), HomePlug Powerline Alliance, and the security standard for smart meters: IEC 62056.
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Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) such as Blockchain, HyperLedger, and DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) for smart contracts, P2P transactions, and smart car charging.
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IoT applications for critical infrastructure like dams, transformers, substations, and high-tension wires.
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