| Abstract |
The increasing presence of distributed energy resources such as domestic PV installations with batteries and hybrid/bi-directional inverters allows consumers to take part in the energy exchange with the distribution grid. Therefore, former consumers are progressively transitioning into prosumers. Nevertheless, the inclusion of prosumers in a former unidirectional structure cannot take place without the development of a real-time measurement acquisition system that can accurately track energy consumption and production by renewable means. This is a critical factor in avoiding security constraints violations, such as overvoltages or dangerous increases in temperature, which may incur damage to transmission lines. Thus, the capacity of the actual infrastructures for handling such an amount of information is still under question. Moreover, the decarbonization process involves replacing former heating systems and mobility solutions with heat pumps and electrical vehicles, with increased consumption and thus compromising the balance. This article aims to analyze the changes in traditional power systems' structures and the progressive introduction of flexibility as a unique solution for the electrification phenomenon. Flexibility still has to face not only legal framework constraints but also has to overcome technical difficulties regarding the design and the deployment of proper metering infrastructure. Flexible loads are also introduced as the key component of the flexibility deployment framework, controlling the active and reactive power they can dispatch to the grid or draw from it. It would be a titanic task to compare all the IoT protocols available in the industry, so the first distinction between wired and wireless data collection systems is made. Later, the advantages and disadvantages of wireless, power-constrained protocols are also analyzed and compared. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
