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A proposal for real-time monitoring and

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A proposal for real-time monitoring and control of the reticulation grid, with photovoltaics, electrical vehicles and batteries embedded, by leveraging the proliferation of
the Internet-of-Things
Proposing a Storm architecture

I.G. Boake
Strategic Power Consulting
Jacobs Engineering Group
Sydney, Australia
ian.boake@jacobs.com

Abstract This paper proposes an approach that demonstrates

the significant benefits that IoT may have in real-time
monitoring and control of the reticulation grid. The
architecture and security standards already exist from the
Smart Grid industry, they only require augmentation to
include the provisions of this nascent IoT technology based on
a Fog/Cloud architecture in a cost effective way, one that
brings the concept of fair dispatching of PV and batteries (EV
based or fixed) for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Keywords- Internet of Things; Fog Computing; Smart Grids;
Electrical Vehicles; Home Battery Storage

I.
INTRODUCTION
The worlds largest virtual power plant (VPP) was
recently announced for 150 participating users with roof-top
PV in Adelaide, South Australia. The users will each
purchase a battery storage system (either 5kWh or 7.7 kWh),
at heavily discounted prices and AGL (the utility) will
control the dispatch via the VPP controller [23]. This will
certainly perform peak-levelling and increase the load-factor
of the distribution feeder, but at only 8 per kWh for energy
exported back to the grid in Australia, these systems only
make financial sense when the local user draws all of the
battery energy for themselves when the sun goes down,
thereby avoiding the utility supply charges.
Surely,
participants supplying non-participants reduces network
losses and creates the type of architectures that will
significantly reduce the reliance on fossil fuels? This
scenario will only eventuate when owners with a
combination of either: PV, batteries and Electrical Vehicles
get a respectable feed-in tariff from the Utility. All
participants would have to agree that network reliability is
the first priority when dispatching power to the reticulation
grid, thereafter, when that objective is achieved, a fair
dispatching system which merely tries to ensure that each
home sells in proportion to their PV and battery investment,
is achieved. The reactive power that inverters are required
to produce is the main means for ensuring voltage stability
on the LV network. The actual solutions range from complex
controls through to the embedding of STATCOMs into LV
reticulation networks [18], [19], [20], [21], [22]. These are

E. Rijgersberg
Senior Instrumentation and Control Engineer
Jacobs Engineering Group
Sydney, Australia
Edwin.Rijgersberg@ jacobs.com

potentially expensive solutions. This paper presents an

alternative to the aforementioned solutions using distributed
control and the Internet-of-Things (IoT).

II.

DESCRIBING THE INTERNET-OF-THINGS

There is a correlation between people with PV, PV +

batteries and with them also having DSL or direct fiber at
home. Possibly a more compelling reason is the advent of the
field of Internet of Things (IoT) which is an enabler for
individual appliance control for the home. To put IoT into
perspective, Dr Kannegiter, a Knowledge Manager in the
Learned Society business unit of Engineers Australia, points
out: A key driver of IOT has been the relentless
miniaturization of computer chips, sensors, actuating
devices, and radio transceivers in microcontroller ICs. This
trend has now reached a tipping point where embedded
systems can now be built into things and devices of almost
any size at an affordable cost with sufficiently low power to
enable batteries to operate the devices for up to ten years.
This trend is opening a vast new landscape of potential
applications for control systems. [1]
Further impetus for this proliferation within the home is
the investment many large companies are making in order to
achieve respectable market share in what is estimated to be a
$19 trillion industry by 2020. The home consumer will be a
large part of this opportunity but the $19 trillion refers to the
complete industry, thereby spawning a new term the
Internet of Everything, IoE [2]
III.

RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES

A. The utilities are already embracing IoT

Utilities have also recognized the opportunity, especially
for asset management, which is their core business, as
observed in a seminal global survey of over 200 executives
at electricity, gas and water utilities undertaken by ABB with
a focus on the ascendency of IIOT within these utilities for

asset management [3]. The term that is used in this survey is

Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). To quote a key finding
from this survey: Some 80 percent held IT-OT integration
for asset management as valuable. 58% of respondents either
have, or are planning to have, a strategy leveraging the
Internet of Things (IoT) for asset management and 55%
reported the importance of asset management has increased
over the past 12 months.

traditional forecasting techniques [10] and will be

counterproductive to reducing complexity and costs, as IoT
already does. Traditionally IT companies, unconstrained by
the fear of new technologies, have already started proposing
a network of drones to deliver packages, using fog
computing, which is ostensibly a more technically and
regulatory complex task than the economic dispatch problem
discussed here [12].

B. Addressing the perceived risks

Many utilities have also already embraced a subset of this
Internet of Things technology, thereby reducing the
uncertainty risk of new technology. They have done so,
albeit within closed systems, in the form of Smart Meters
and Smart Grids [4], with the requisite architectures, security
features [5] and control algorithms [16]. The practice is thus
tried and tested. Many of the lessons learnt from those
endeavors will no doubt be utilized, when instead of a smart
meter being at a node in the communications grid, there will
now be a condition monitoring sensor of sorts [13]. This
diffusion of IoT is making Condition Based Maintenance
(CBM) the norm, rather than the exception for all utilities
within the Asset Management strategies. It is also true that
some utilities have invested in their own telecommunications
networks to provide much greater bandwidth for the
provision of more features aside from their traditional teleprotection systems.

A. Grid and behind-the-meter solutions

Most of the grid stabilization offerings (and firming
solutions) in the market today focus on the integrational
aspects of devices and systems that stabilize the network
from the equipment forming part of the supply side. These
have reached commercialization and a number of early
projects are proving successful [14], [23]. The problem is
that there is only so much that can be done on the supply side
and these solutions become expensive when deployed as in a
distributed generation (DG) model especially when land
acquisition and cable routes for these devices are also added
into the equation. A solution proposed in this paper is, not to
dispense with these devices in a few critical nodes in the
smart grid or micro-grid, but to consider a combined solution
leveraging the very low cost nature and vast offering that IoT
offers. The IoT is thus a demand response or demand side
solution, behind-the-meter, in conjunction with existing
smart meters and grid stabilization technologies and
distributed generation. A good demonstration project that
demonstrates all but the IoT integration has been operational
since 2012 [17].

IV.

CONTROL AND ARCHITECTURE

Significant work has already been done on preventing

cascading failures using Smart Grid infrastructure to
maximize reliability and reliance and to defer the
replacement of aging infrastructure [6], [7], [8]. The
legislative frameworks for the integration of IoT will follow
once the fairness of energy dispatching is resolved and all the
risks are adequately defined and addressed. One such intent
is seen from the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) in
Australia where tariff changes (pricing signals) are being
contemplated to facilitate better utility from batteries and PV
system owners [9]. The IoT may reduce the inherent
uncertainties associated with the human behavior of
gaming and the requirement for large scale state-loadestimations (SLE). This can be achieved when the actual
equipment status and usage/generation are directly
monitored and controlled using IoT at the most granular
level, in what is known as fog computing. Fog
computing [11] takes intelligence as close to the equipment,
as is economically possible within an IoT view-of-the-world,
thereby reducing data rates from the monitored/controlled
equipment and thereby reducing the computational burden of
large sets of aggregated data in a centralized IT architecture.
An approach which would need to forecast participant
responses in a simulation, and in that way supply the
required justifications for the necessary business cases, may
not be the best approach to leverage all the resources,
processes and intent already available for augmenting Smart
Grids with IoT. The forecasting of such user responses is a
very complex problem that is not easily solved with

B. Integration of Cloud and Fog Computing

The IoT proposition is either via solution (1): Lower
Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), which are currently
being introduced in many countries, specifically for IoT
integration, acting as the IoT cloud above the fog, as it
were. This cloud-based smart grid controller (CBSGC)
would then issue the fair dispatching of battery injection and
PV to participating houses via the LPWAN network and the
houses own personal area network (PAN) with the IoT
devices (sensors connected to appliances/PV/EV and
batteries, etc.) all responding to the demand signal. These
devices would also need to give an acknowledgement
feedback signal to the (CBSGC) to inform that system how
much the fog-based home controller (FBHC) has responded
to the request based on the home users own preferences.
This is well within the capabilities of the existing IoT
offerings. A variant on this solution is for the broadband or
DSL connection of the home to be used, rather, which will
provide a lower cost sub-option. This then uses the
conventional internet based cloud option. A hybrid of these
two options, with an interconnected IoT-Cloud and
conventional internet-based Cloud, would be a good starting
point for this scenario. This IoT-Cloud and internet-based
Clouds can then simply be named the Storm to complete
this visual analogy.

The second proposition (2) is for the utility/network

owner to have a pseudo real-time pricing market that issues
pricing signals via the Storm and the IoT home users
fog computing system assesses the benefit within the
comfort parameters set by the user and then autonomously
responds and honors the transaction. There will be a
continuum of these comfort parameters that the home user
will set from no-participation for a given time period, to
full autonomous control. In the true spirit of the IoT
architecture, the users gateway (part of the fog) will need
to have artificial intelligence built-in so that it will learn from
the successes or failure of the past transactions and improve
upon these for future transactions.
V.

CONCLUSION

The technical, security, hardware and software

challenges have already been met, in fact what is on offer is
so far beyond what is currently being used in the utility IoT
space. This is of course not the fault of the utilities, as they
can currently only trial applications in the absence of firm
policy and regulations. Regulators are affording utilities less
and less expenditure by way of network augmentations due
to low load demand growth rates. This will see networks
developing with far weaker large generation in-feeds via
strong transmission and generation networks thereby
exacerbating the network stability issues. Solar PV with
battery storage, distributed battery storage distributed
charging stations and electrical vehicles are seeing
unprecedented take-up within the market, not least of which
the growing concerns from all and sundry, pertaining to the
environmental impacts of fossil fuel generation and
associated transmission and distribution network losses. It is
foreseeable that the steady, firm predictable tariffs demanded
to make a large Energy Storage System financially feasible
[15], is the exact opposite of what the real-time grid, enabled
by the IoT revolution, needs. The tension in this arena will
tend to favor the lower cost option, which by its very nature,
is IoT. The IoT revolution in this particular space will
depend on energy arbitrage and possibly pseudo real-time
pricing markets. The tide cannot be stemmed and sooner or
later the legislators will need to adopt a firm stance as there
is a Storm architecture that needs to be accommodated.
The term Storm is taken from the idea that the significant
activity from the large volumes of IoT sensors (with their
associated data) and coupled with both Fog Computing and
the Cloud will create an architecture much larger and
pervasive than before.
Abbreviations and Acronyms
IoT- Internet of Things
IIOT -Industrial Internet of Things
VPP-Virtual Power Plant
PV- Photo-Voltaic
LPWAN-Lower Power Wide Area Networks
CBSGC-Cloud-Based Smart Grid Controller
PAN-Personal Area Network in homes and buildings
connected behind a NAT router

NAT-Network Address Translation router so as to

present only one IP address to the internet for a number
of devices connected through the router
FBHC-Fog-Based Home Controller
DG-Distributed Generation
SLE-State-Load-Estimating
CBM-Condition Based Maintenance
DSLDigital Subscriber Line, fixed line communications
IT-OT-Information Technology and Operational
Technology
EV Electrical Vehicles
AER Australian Energy Regulator
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to acknowledge Jacobs Engineering
Group for their support and commitment to the Internet-ofThings, to the benefit of all stakeholders.

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FIGURES
See the next pages

Figure 1 Adapted from [5] to show how traditional architectures need to be augmented

Figure 2 Low Voltage Reticulation control using IoT and "the Storm"